Commercial Litigation
When can you be deprived of costs where you better your Part 36 offer?
On 17 December 2015, the Ministry of Justice made a final decision to end the Insolvency Litigation exemption from the 2012 Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LAPSO) (see Written Statement here). Successful claimants will no longer be able to recover the success fee on a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA) or After the Event insurance (ATE) premium from the opposing party for those CFAs entered into or ATE obtained from 1 April 20
As we have recently highlighted and discussed in depth elsewhere in relation to the UKCS (click here), the confidence of North Sea oil & gas contractors is at an all-time low.
The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) levy Determination for 2016/17 was published on 17 December 2015. It follows a consultation with PPF stakeholders which was launched in September this year. The levy Determination sets out the rules for calculating a scheme’s annual PPF levy. In our September Update we reported on the key changes which were being proposed as part of the 2016/17 consultation process.
In The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs v Amran Munir and others [2015], the directors and secretary of a company were sentenced by the High Court to a term of imprisonment for contempt of court.
Summary
In John David Hedger (the Liquidator of Pro4Sport Ltd) v David Adams [2015], the Liquidator of Pro4Sport Ltd (Pro4Sport) made an application to the Court under section 212 of the Insolvency Act 1986. The claim arose out of one transaction which took place shortly before the liquidation of Pro4Sport on 20 July 2012. On 25 June 2012 Mr Adams, on behalf of Pro4Sport, transferred all, or practically all, of the assets of Pro4Sport to an associated company, Pro4Sport.co.uk Ltd (Pro4Sport.co.uk) for a deferred consideration of £47,000 plus VAT.
A number of headlines following a recent high-profile professional negligence case suggest that there is no duty on a purchaser’s conveyancer to check a seller’s solvency. It is, of course, part of the normal pre-contract searches and enquiries to check on the solvency of the seller, and in the majority of cases, the property solicitor will become aware of the seller’s bankruptcy, as a notice or restriction on the title will show up on the official search of the registered title.
Solvent
In a High Court decision this week it was held that there is no general duty on a solicitor to check the credit status of the seller in a conveyancing transaction unless expressly instructed.
The judgment also provides a useful analysis of the extent to which a solicitor should advise a client regarding the risks of a particular transaction generally, not just in the context of conveyancing.
Facts
In this two part guide we will be looking at issues that frequently arise when considering whether a professional indemnity policy responds to a claim against a construction professional.
In Part 1 we consider whether there is cover. In particular:
- Prior claims – when will a “new” claim fall within an existing notification?
- The obligation to notify circumstances
- Aggregation
- Insolvency of the Insured
Prior claims
Earlier this year, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) published its consultation on the second PPF Levy Triennium (2015/16 to 2017/18) which proposed wholesale changes to the measure of insolvency risk and significant changes in respect of contingent assets and the PPF’s treatment of asset-backed contributions.
As we await the outcome of the consultation, employers and trustees may find a summary of the proposals helpful in trying to gauge how they could impact their scheme’s PPF levy.
The PPF-specific insolvency risk model