Recent economic challenges have triggered significant developments for household name companies in 2023.
This quarterly civil fraud update provides a summary of reported decisions handed down in the courts of England and Wales in the period of January - March 2023.
BRIBERY
Background
Decision
Key takeaways
The High Court has clarified the grounds for challenging a CVA for guarantee creditors.
The Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill introduces a raft of fundamental changes designed to modernise and improve the law of Scotland in relation to transactions concerning moveable property.
It is widely anticipated that the next twelve months could be a challenging period for many businesses in the UK and that there could be a significant rise in the number of companies in financial distress.
Where this is the case, the directors of those companies will need to be increasingly mindful of the duties they have to the company's creditors, as well as to its shareholders.
The High Court has clarified the grounds for challenging a CVA for guarantee creditors.
Background
Mizen Design/Build Ltd's (Mizen) directors proposed a CVA stating that this would lead to a better result for unsecured creditors than the likely alternative, administration.
The CVA compromised guarantee creditors' ability both to bring a claim against Mizen and to call upon their performance guarantees against Mizen's parent company (the Parent Guarantor).
In a previous blog about the case of Mizen we considered the case from the point of view of “guarantee stripping”, looking at how the CVA dealt with those claims. However, the CVA was challenged on a number of bases, including whether it was unfairly prejudicial as a consequence of “vote swamping”.
In this blog, we look at that aspect of the case.
With insolvencies expected to increase in the UK’s construction industry this year, as higher interest rates, inflation and an anticipated domestic recession dampen demand for housing and new commercial projects, we are often asked what protections an Employer can put in place in their contract to assist in the event of their contractor going into insolvency.
These issues should be considered at the time of entering into contracts and we have set out below some useful provisions which may assist should an insolvency occur during a project. These are:
The so-called crypto-winter and associated high profile insolvencies of major players such as FTX, Three Arrows Capital and Genesis may have dampened enthusiasm for this new asset class in some quarters. However, while volatility is likely to be an ongoing characteristic in the short and medium term, it is probably better to view recent events as a period of market correction rather than the "beginning of the end" of crypto assets.
The future for a new class of digital assets
In the first case of its kind since Re Business City Limited ([1997] 2 BCLC 510) in 1997, and only the second ever such case, the High Court of England and Wales made an order on 5 April 2023 recognising and giving the force of law in England and Wales to a scheme of arrangement in an Irish examinership. The High Court of Northern Ireland made a similar order in the same case on 3 April 2023.