The UK Supreme Court has held that the extinction of a company's beneficial interest under a trust on the transfer of an asset by the trustee to a bona fide purchaser without notice does not constitute a "disposition" under section 127 of the English Insolvency Act 1986 (the "Act").

In this English case, a secured lender (Nationwide) appointed administrators to three companies. However, before appointing, Nationwide had:

On 6 April 2017, the new Insolvency Rules come into force which will affect creditors’

rights in most insolvency procedures. The changes are designed to ensure insolvency processes are as efficient and streamlined as possible in order to maximise returns to creditors by reducing costs whilst retaining safeguards to avoid abuse or injustice.

Whether you are faced with an insolvent customer, client, supplier, tenant or other debtor, you will need to know about the key changes to the rules. This article highlights the important changes affecting your rights as a creditor.

On 6 April 2017, together with the new Insolvency Rules (England and Wales) 2016, the Investment Bank (Amendment of Definition) and Special Administration (Amendment) Regulations 2017 (the “Regulations”) will come into force.

These regulations follow an independent review of the special administration regime, undertaken by Peter Bloxham during 2013, assessing the success of the special administration regime and making recommendations of possible changes that may improve the operation and robustness of the regime.

The recent spate of high-profile company voluntary arrangements (CVAs), including those of BHS, Store 21 and more recently Love Coffee, The Food Retailer Group and Blue Inc, has placed this corporate rescue tool back in the spotlight.

CVAs can be a useful mechanism for turning around a failing business, but it is clear that they are no panacea. First, they don’t always work, and BHS is a striking example of a CVA failing to save a business despite compromising a large number of leasehold liabilities.

Changes to the Insolvency Act 1986 ("Act")

SBEEA 2015 makes a host of supplemental amendments to the Act, the general effect of which is remove references to creditors' meetings and replace them with the alternative decision processes.

As a consequence:

Privilege and insolvency

A recent Court of Appeal decision means insolvency practitioners should think twice before instructing solicitors. The case confirmed that whilst there is nothing wrong in principle with solicitors acting for both a trustee in bankruptcy or liquidator and a creditor of the bankrupt or insolvent company, conflicts can arise. Where they do, solicitors may be required to cease acting for the creditor.

This article was first published in Growth Business, and the original article can be found online here.

A significant decision issued last week by a five judge bench of the Inner House has reversed a 40 year old decision on the meaning of 'effectually executed diligence' in a receivership.

Section 60 of the Insolvency Act 1986 provides that in a receivership, all persons who have 'effectually executed diligence' on any part of the property of the company which is subject to the charge by which the receiver is appointed have priority over the holder of the floating charge.

Insolvent trusts – the myth becomes reality is the third in a series of quarterly webinars aimed at providing trustees with a comprehensive overview of various contentious trust topics.

In this webinar we examine the concept of an insolvent trust, provide a summary of the only case addressing this issue (on which our team is acting), outline the developments in relation to the statutory legal position and identify the key issues which trustees need to consider in this scenario.