The hair salon Regis announced recently that the company has entered administration. The news might not come as a surprise because the chain, prior to the company’s administration, was subject to a company voluntary arrangement (“CVA”) whose validity was challenged by landlords.
The joint administrator of Regis commented: “trading challenges, coupled with the uncertainty caused by the legal challenge, have necessitated the need for an administration appointment”.
The appointment of administrators means that the legal challenge to the CVA is at an end. Landlords had challenged the terms of the CVA as unfair, with some landlords’ rent payments purportedly being cut by up to 100%.
Following the decision earlier this year in connection with the Debenhams CVA, when the Court confirmed that a CVA cannot compromise a landlord’s right to forfeit (see our previous blog post discussing the practical impact of that) we had hoped that the Regis case would provide further guidance on the ability of a CVA to compromise landlord claims.
Whilst the landlords claims against Regis are now at an end, this may not be the last time a landlord brings such a case given that retail trading conditions remain difficult.
Those challenging conditions have also meant that landlords are taking a different approach to managing property costs and our blog post last week takes a look at the position from both the landlords’ and tenants’ perspective.