From 30 April 2021, an administrator will be unable to complete a sale of a substantial part of a company’s property to a connected person without either the approval of creditors or an an independent written option. Our new alert considers the impact of the new regulations in practice, which apply to both pre-packs and post-packs that take place eight weeks of an administrator’s appointment answering questions such as: How does the administrator assess whether…

With the UK taking positive steps towards re-opening the economy, businesses will start to see the true impact that lockdown restrictions (and the lifting of those restrictions) have on supply and demand. The UK government has continued to support UK businesses including,  most recently, extending the prohibition on winding up petitions and the forfeiture moratorium, but there are still difficult decisions that directors need to make over the coming months. For directors, one of the…

The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 introduced a number of temporary changes to UK insolvency laws last year.  Those changes, together with other measures such as the moratorium on forfeiture proceedings have recently been extended, we assume, to avoid the perceived cliff edge of insolvencies that might follow if such measures are brought to an end abruptly. As with many of the UK government announcements and legislative changes, these have been announced in a…

Following the UK Government extending the restrictions on winding up petitions until 30 June 2021 it is useful to note two recent cases that have considered the coronavirus test that currently applies to winding up petitions. In the first case Newman v Templar Corp Ltd [2020] EWHC 3740 (Ch) heard before Christmas but only recently reported, the judge took the view that the low threshold test for determining whether coronavirus had had an impact on…

With fairly swift measure the UK House of Commons approved the ‘pre-pack regulations’ confirming that, with effect from 30 April 2021, before a pre-pack sale can complete creditor approval or an independent written report from an evaluator will be required. The detail about, the now mandatory referral process, can be found in our previous blogs. Who will the evaluator be? This remains one of the biggest unknowns. The only requirements in the regulations about…

The Government has issued a consultation paper  regarding statutory audits and financial reporting. The consultation makes proposals in relation to four areas, namely directors, auditors and audit firms, shareholders and the audit regulator. We have previously summarised the proposals impacting the purpose and scope of an audit. This post will focus upon the matters affecting directors’ duties, and how the proposals may interact with the existing frameworks and enforcement powers that are in play when…

For the past year, many Australian businesses, ranging from very significant publicly listed corporations, to much smaller family businesses, have benefited from public and private relief measures intended to soften the impact of COVID-19. Although those measures were introduced as a direct result of pandemic-related concerns, the economic reality in many sectors was already uncertain and many businesses were facing challenges. The pandemic accelerated and increased the operating and trading pressures.  In this alert we…