With APCOA Parking, the English High Court sets out the latest line of authority in the increasing use of schemes of arrangement by foreign companies.

This case, APCOA Parking (UK) Limited & Ors [2014] EWHC 997 (Ch), presents two novel aspects:

On 27 June 2014, the High Court of Justice of England and Wales sanctioned the solvent scheme of arrangement made by J.K. Buckenham Limited and its Scheme Creditors pursuant to Part 26 of the Companies Act 2006 which was voted on and approved by the Scheme Creditors during the meeting held on 4 June 2014. A copy of the Order sanctioning the Scheme was delivered to the Registrar of Companies on 30 June 2014, and the Scheme became effective on that date.

In this article on the changing landscape of UK fashion retail, we consider the challenges and changes faced by the industry and comment on the opportunities available for existing players and potential new entrants to the market.

The UK fashion industry is estimated to contribute over £21 billion annually to the UK economy. Of this figure, an estimated £2.5 billion comprises retail spending. With over 800,000 people employed in the industry, fashion retail is a significant and vibrant part of UK Plc.

Pre-packs involve the pre-determined sale of a business before it enters administration, allowing a sale within days of an administrator's appointment. Examples of pre-packs include Dreams, JJB Sports and stockbroker Seymour Pierce. Pre-packs are a useful tool for the insolvency profession allowing businesses to be sold before being unduly damaged by the insolvency process, often saving jobs that might otherwise be lost.

Key points

The court has jurisdiction to order the UK Registrar of Companies to replace previously filed administrators' proposals.

The Facts

The administrators of a company filed a statement of proposals with the Registrar but then sought to replace the proposals because they contained information that the company was obliged to keep confidential. The administrators argued that:

Key Point

The Graham Review into pre-pack administrations suggests beefing up SIP16 and creating new steps in the sale process where the sale is to a connected party but stops short of proposing new legislation.

The Graham Review

Key Point

Neither failure to obtain debtor's consent to modifications to an IVA proposal, prior to the creditors' meeting; nor the unauthorised exercise of a proxy at a creditors' meeting render an approved IVA a nullity.

The facts

Many schemes will see a sharp increase in their levy next year  as a result of the PPF’s new and more discriminative insolvency  scoring system.

To give you an idea, the PPF expects:

Blue Monkey Gaming v Hudson & Others

Insolvency professionals will welcome the High Court's decision in Blue Monkey Gaming Limited v Hudson & Others [2014] which is clear authority that the onus is upon retention of title claimants, not administrators, to locate and identify retention of title goods. The court made clear that to require the administrator to identify retention of title goods would be "totally unrealistic and practically unworkable."

Many will be familiar with the words “further advances” and associate this term with typical boiler plate provisions in finance documents.

In a recent case (In the matter of Black Ant Co Ltd (in administration) [2014] EWHC 1161 (Ch)(15 April 2014) the High Court provided useful commentary on the meaning of “further advances” in the context of the priority of security.