10 April 2014
[2014] EWHC 1132 (Ch)
Chancery Division (HHJ Simon Barker QC)

Instead of making an administration order as sought and which was unopposed, the Court brought on an extant winding up petition for hearing and appointed a provisional liquidator.

24 February 2014
[2014] EWCA Civ 180
Court of Appeal (Patten, Lewison and Sharp LJJ)

The fact that rent payable in advance had fallen due prior to the tenant company entering administration did not prevent that that rent being payable an expense of the liquidation of the tenant company under the salvage/Lundy Granite principle.  The amount of rent so payable was a question of fact.

28 February 2014
[2014] EWHC 540 (Ch)
Companies Court (Etherton C)

When is a company’s property not its property?

10 February 2014
[2014] EWHC 229 (Ch)
Chancery Division (Etherton C)

A deputy registrar was wrong to dismiss a discharged bankrupt’s annulment application when the only creditor had decided not to prove for its debt.  The deputy register also erred in his approach to the TIB’s application to change the basis of his remuneration.

03 April 2014
[2014] EWCA Civ 383
Court of Appeal (Sullivan, McFarlane and Lewison LJJ)

Further guidance from the Court of Appeal on the meaning of insolvency and the relationship between the cash flow and the balance sheet tests.  A company that can only pay its debts as they fall due by incurring further debt is still insolvent. 

The courts have been busy in recent months considering various schemes of arrangement and reconstructions, including the following 4 unusual and high-profile applications.

In the matter of Co-operative Bank plc

18 December 2013

Companies Court (David Richards J)

[2014] EWHC 4397 (Ch)

21 January 2014
[2014] EWCA Civ 26
Court of Appeal (Arden, Sullivan and Davis LJJ)

Following suspension of IVAs, all creditors were bound by varied IVAs approved at a further creditors' meeting directed by the court, even if they had become creditors after the initial suspension.

18 December 2013

[2013] EWCA Civ 1626

Court of Appeal (Rimer, Kitchin, Christopher Clarke LJJ)

Whether landlords' rights to seek specific performance of an agreement to surrender leases survived an intervening insolvency

16 December 2013

[2013] EWHC 4287 (Comm)

Commercial Court, Queen's Bench Division (Burton J)

Foreign trustee-in-bankruptcy personally liable for costs of restraining foreign insolvency proceedings, on an indemnity basis

15 November 2013

[2013] EWCA Civ 1408 

Court of Appeal (Elias, Kitchin, McCombe LJJ)

No recovery if the company has not "entered into" the transaction at an undervalue

In Re Ovenden the Court of Appeal decided that a payment made by a trustee of company money to a third party, without the company’s involvement, could not be a transaction at an undervalue under section 238 of the Insolvency Act 1986 because it was not a transaction entered into by the company.