Insolvency Oracle

Developments in UK insolvency by Michelle Butler

Monthly Archives: January 2014


by 1 Comment

Thank you, Santa, for delivering Red Tape Cuts

IMGP5170

I owe the Insolvency Service an apology. I must have sounded like an ungrateful child at Christmas when I tweeted that we’d heard all their Red Tape-cutting measures before. Such is the disadvantage of having lived with my list for Santa for several months already and such is the immediacy of Twitter. Sorry, Insolvency Service!

The Insolvency Service’s release on 23 January 2014 – http://insolvency.presscentre.com/Press-Releases/Reforms-to-cut-insolvency-red-tape-unveiled-69853.aspx – announced that several measures, aired in its consultation document in July 2013, are to be taken forward, either via primary legislation changes “when Parliamentary time allows” or via changes to the Rules, which are “due for completion in 2015/16”. I’d blogged about the consultation document’s proposals on 16 August 2013 at http://wp.me/p2FU2Z-3Q. Here, I try to decipher exactly which of the consultation’s proposals are being taken forward, which is not as simple a task as it may sound!

“Allowing IPs to communicate with creditors electronically, instead of letters”

The consultation had set out a proposal that IPs could use websites to post creditors’ reports etc., as they do now, but without the need to send a letter to each creditor every time something is posted to the website. The proposal was that there would be one letter to creditors informing them that all future circulars would be posted to the website.

In my view, this really would save costs. I see quite a few IPs are now posting reports to websites, so it would be lovely to avoid even the periodic one-pager to creditors informing them of the publication of something new, although I’d love to see the statistics on how many people (other than us insolvency people) actually look at the reports on websites…

Of course, the Rules already provide that an IP can post everything onto a website, but at present only with a court order. Thus, I’m wondering, is the next bullet point simply another way of describing this first of Santa’s gifts..?

“Removing the requirements for office holders to obtain court orders for certain actions (e.g. extending administrations, posting information on websites)”

It’s not exactly clear what the Service has in mind on administration extensions. The consultation document suggested that administration extensions might be allowed with creditors’ consent for a period longer than 6 months. It suggested that creditors could be asked to extend for 12 months (with a 6-month extension by consent still an option), although it asked whether we thought that creditors should be allowed to approve longer extensions. So is the plan that creditors be allowed to extend a maximum of 12 months or longer?

And I’d like to know if the Service is persuaded to make any changes to the consent-giving process: are they going to stick to the requirement that all secured creditors must approve an extension (whether it is a Para 52(1)(b) case or not and no matter what the security attaches to or where the creditor appears in the pecking order), as is currently the case, or could they – please?! – lighten up on this requirement? And are they going to clarify that once a creditor is paid in full, they do not count for this, and other, voting purposes? So many questions remain…

The consultation document contained several other proposals for avoiding the court, such as “clarifying” that administrators need not apply to court to distribute a prescribed part to unsecured creditors (although I’m not sure why administrators should not be allowed also to distribute non-prescribed part monies to unsecured creditors). Coupled with changes to the extension process, administrations are no longer appearing to be the short-term temporary process that the Enterprise Act seemed to present them as.

“Reducing record keeping requirements by IPs which are only used for internal purposes”

I’m not entirely sure what this means. Does this refer to the current need to retain time records on all cases, including those where the fees are fixed on a percentage basis? These are internal records (even though they probably serve no purpose), but does that also mean that Rules 1.55 and 5.66, requiring Nominees/Supervisors to provide time cost information on request by a creditor, will be abolished?

Or does this statement relate to the maintenance of Reg 13 IP Case Records in their entirety? These are, in effect, records for internal purposes (in fact, they’re not even that, are they? Does anyone actually use them?), although the Regs provide that the RPBs/IS are entitled to inspect the Reg 13 records. So does that still make them an internal-purpose record?

I would like to think that the Service has accepted that the Reg 13 record is a complete waste of time and is planning to abolish it entirely. However, as I flagged up in my earlier post, the consultation document proposed that “legislation should require IPs to maintain whatever records necessary to justify the actions and decisions they may have taken on a case. It is not expected that such a provision would impose a new requirement, but rather codify what is already expected of regulated professionals.” Does this recent announcement mean that the Service will not seek to implement this measure? Let’s hope so!

“Simplifying the process of reporting director misconduct to make the process quicker by introducing electronic forms to ensure timely action is brought against them in a timely way, providing a higher level of protection to the business community and public”

Electronic D-forms? Lovely, we’ll have those, thank you, although in my view it’s not a big deal: it just avoids a bit of printing.

What makes me a little nervous is the use of “timely” twice in this statement. The consultation proposed to change the deadline for a D-form to 3 months and the Service believed that this would not be an issue for IPs if its other proposal – to drop the requirement for IPs to express an opinion on whether the conduct makes it appear that the person is unfit to be a director and replace it with a requirement to provide “details of director behaviour which may indicate unfitness” – is also taken up.

As I explained in my earlier post, personally I don’t see this as a great quid pro quo for IPs and I don’t think it will help the Service catch the bad guys much quicker. When faced with slippery directors, 3 months is a very short time to gather all the threads.

“Allowing office-holders to rely on the insolvent’s records when paying small claims, reducing the need for creditors to complete claim forms”

The consultation document proposed that IPs could admit claims under £1,000 per the statement of affairs or accounting records without any claim form or supporting documentation from creditors (although creditors would still be free to submit claims contradicting statements of affairs).

It doesn’t seem right to me – there’s a sense of fudginess about it, particularly in view of the shabbiness of most insolvents’ records just before they topple – but I guess that, in the scheme of things, it’s not a big deal if a creditor receives a few pounds more than he’s entitled to on one case, but a bit less on another. It might be academic anyway, given the final measure…

“Reducing costs by removing the requirement to pay out small dividends and instead using the money for the wider benefit of creditors”

The Service had proposed that, where a dividend payment would be less than, say, £5 or £10, it would not be paid to the creditor, but would go to the disqualification unit or the Treasury. The consultation document had asked whether the threshold should be per interim/final dividend or across the total dividends. Given the likely difficulties of keeping track of small unpaid dividend cheques, I do hope that the Service has its eye clearly set on saving costs and will stick with a threshold for each dividend payment declared. As with the previous measure, although it brings in a sense of creditor equality that seems more suited to Animal Farm, we are only talking about small sums here, so I guess it makes practical sense.

.
Thank you, Insolvency Santa, for giving us a peek into your big red sack of goodies. It’s great to see some really promising outcomes from the Red Tape Challenge, even if we have to see at least one more Christmas pass by before we get to open our prezzies.


by Leave a comment

Changes to TUPE: Clear as Mud

IMGP4777

The Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 are set to come into force on 31 January 2014. The draft Regulations can be accessed at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/254738/bis-13-1272-draft-tupe-regulations-2013.pdf. (UPDATE 04/04/2014: On reading R3’s Technical Bulletin 106, I realised that I had not updated this to provide a link to the final regs: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/16/contents/made. BTW R3, as imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I will take your article 106.6 as a compliment (although I’d still be interested in learning who on GTC was behind it)!)

These Regulations affect the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 and the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and came about as a result of the Government’s early 2013 consultation. The Government’s response on the close of the consultation can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/transfer-of-undertakings-protection-of-employment-regulations-tupe-2006-consultation-on-proposed-changes.

From what I can see, the changes that may impact insolvency contexts are:

• The wording around unfair dismissals connected with transfers is being changed. The TUPE Regulations 2006 state that an employee is treated as unfairly dismissed “if the sole or principal reason for his dismissal is the transfer itself or a reason connected with the transfer” (where that is not an ETO reason etc.) (Regulation 7(1)). This is to be replaced with: “if the reason for the dismissal is the transfer” (other than ETO reasons). It would seem to me that this cleaner and more specific description may take a lot of the uncertainty out of how Tribunals might view dismissals – we can only hope!

• The definition of ETO reasons “entailing changes in the workforce” will include a change to employees’ place of work.

• Pre-transfer consultation may be carried out either by the transferor or, under these Regulations, by the transferee (with the transferor’s agreement), and this may count as consultation towards subsequent redundancies. However, a transferee will not be able to claim “special circumstances rendering it not reasonably practicable” to consult on the basis that the transferor had failed to provide information or assist the transferee.

• The time period within which a transferee must provide employee liability information to a transferor has been increased from not less than 14 days to not less than 28 days before the transfer.

• Employers of fewer than 10 employees – micro-businesses – no longer need to invite employees to elect representatives to consult on transfers, although if there are already recognised employee representatives, the employer needs to consult with them. If there are no representatives, the employer simply consults directly with the employees.

What has not changed?

Not unsurprisingly given that it is still the subject of an appeal, the Regulations continue to refer to “at one establishment”, although the current position of the Woolworths Tribunals process suggests that this does not implement adequately the EC Directive (http://wp.me/p2FU2Z-3I).

The Government had also sought views on whether a transferor could rely on a transferee’s ETO reason to dismiss an employee prior to a transfer. Although 57% of all those who responded to the consultation supported the concept (and only 26% were opposed), the Government has decided not to take this idea further, pointing out that it hadn’t actually put forward a proposal to change the Regulations, it had merely asked an open question! It felt that such a change could result in an increase in “general unfairness in the labour market” and could be challenged in the courts, as the suggestion had been made that it would be contrary to CJEU judgments and perhaps to the spirit of the Acquired Rights Directive (see Government response, section 11).


by Leave a comment

Just Scottish Coal Company: Scottish Liquidators’ Powers to Disclaim – back to square one

Peru2284

Re The Scottish Coal Company Limited (In Liquidation) (12 December 2013) ([2013] CSIH 108)

http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/2013/2013CSIH108.html

In an earlier blog post – http://wp.me/p2FU2Z-3I – I covered the judgment in the Outer House of the Court of Session, which decided that the joint liquidators were entitled to disclaim onerous land and abandon water use licences.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency and others appealed to the Inner House with the outcome that the previous decision was recalled and the court directed that the liquidators do not have the power to abandon or disclaim the sites or the statutory licences. The consequences seem to go further than that, however, as this decision indicates that the post-appointment liabilities arising under these statutory regimes will fall as liquidation expenses.

To summarise the issue facing the liquidators: the Scottish Coal Company Limited (“SCC”) carried out open cast coal operations on some of its sites under licences granted under the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) Regulations 2005 and 2011 (“the CARs”) and permits issued under the Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2000 and 2012. The costs of continuing to meet the terms of these licences and permits were running at c.£500,000 per month. If the liquidators’ only option in escaping these were to comply with the terms of surrender, the cost would be several million pounds.

The judgment runs to 162 paragraphs and is challenging in many respects. To do it justice, I thought I’d give this its own post. I think the key bases for the court’s decision can be summarised as follows.

If a trustee can abandon property, why can’t a Scottish liquidator?

The original decision arose in part from consideration of S169(2) of the Insolvency Act 1986, which states that “in a winding up by the court in Scotland, the liquidator has (subject to the rules) the same powers as a trustee on a bankruptcy estate”: as a Scottish trustee has power to abandon heritable property (S32(9A) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985), so too, it was thought, should a Scottish liquidator. On appeal, the Inner House examined whether this trustee power does not translate into a liquidator’s power to rid himself of onerous property. Strictly speaking, a trustee does not abandon the property, but only “any claim to the debtor’s share and interest … in the property. No transfer of ownership is envisaged. Rather, the trustee gives up what… is a personal right to acquire ownership of (that is, a real right in) the property” (paragraph 117). When the trustee abandons this right, the property remains in the ownership of the bankrupt.

Now try applying that power to a liquidator: “Unlike the situation of a trustee, who obtains a personal right to acquire ownership of the bankrupt’s heritage upon vesting of the sequestrated estate, a liquidator acquires no such right. The company’s property, whether moveable or heritable, does not vest in him at all” (paragraph 121), thus the liquidator cannot “abandon” property in the same way as a trustee can, as he does not hold the “personal right to acquire ownership” of the property. The company remains the owner throughout. “From a practical point of view, the liquidator may elect, in certain circumstances and with appropriate sanctions, not to realise certain property, whether moveable or heritable; or he may be unable to realise it. If that remains the position as at dissolution, then so be it… The property, however, does not become separated in any legal sense from the company’s general assets in advance of that dissolution” (paragraph 123).

So, if a liquidator cannot abandon the sites, what about the licences?

The judges looked at the provisions contained in the CARs as an example of a statutory regime governing some of the many licences that the liquidators were seeking to abandon. Under the CARs, “simply by assuming the role of, for example, liquidator, the insolvency practitioner concerned becomes ‘the person who is responsible for securing compliance with the terms of [any CARs] licence’ granted to the company” (paragraph 129). “By virtue of it having applied for and been granted a CARs licence, SCC incurred onerous obligations to avoid the risk of adverse impact on the water environment and to leave it in such a state that it complies with the relevant environmental legislation. These obligations subsist notwithstanding the cessation of any or all activity on the part of SCC and, in particular, any controlled activity. Moreover, by virtue of the very clear terms of regulation 2(1) of the CARs, which as already noted include a liquidator within the definition of ‘responsible person’, those obligations are incumbent upon the liquidators” (paragraph 133).

As a Scottish liquidator has no express power to disclaim onerous property, “whether a Scottish liquidator has power specifically to abandon a CARs licence, and thereby bring an end to its onerous conditions, must depend on the terms of the CARs and the relevant licences” (paragraph 136). The CARs contain no such provision for abandonment, but instead they provide specific mechanisms for releasing a licensee, including surrender. Therefore, either the liquidator pursues a surrender – accepting the expensive conditions attached to it by SEPA – or the licences continue until the liquidators vacate office and the company is dissolved.

Ok, if the liquidators cannot disclaim the licences, can they at least avoid the obligations arising from them falling as liquidation expenses?

The judges considered the intended purpose of the CARs: “Where, as here, the relevant legislation was enacted to implement an EU Directive, it is taken to be the legislative intention to achieve the purpose of the Directive… As already noted, the CARs were made under section 20 of the 2003 Act, which was enacted in order to transpose the Water Framework Directive into domestic law. The Water Framework Directive is extensive in its scope and ambitious in its objectives. Its purposes include, for example, the establishment of ‘a framework for the protection of inland surface waters, transitional waters, coastal waters and groundwater which: …ensures the progressive reduction of pollution of groundwater and prevents its further pollution’ (art 1(a)). Where an insolvent company will in due course be dissolved, enforcing a statutory licence against a liquidator affords at best only temporary and imperfect environmental protection. Nevertheless it would seem to be beyond argument that the broad interpretation of the CARs will better achieve the desired result. As a consequence, SCC’s environmental obligations will be treated as liquidation expenses, thereby giving them priority over other obligations” (paragraphs 142 and 143).

They also pointed to other “persuasive factors in favour of giving pre-eminence to the policy of maximising environmental protection over the policy of the expeditious and equal distribution of available assets among the unsecured creditors of an insolvent company”, such as the decision in Re Mineral Resources, which included that “the interest in the protection of the environment should prevail over the interest in fair and orderly winding up of companies” (paragraph 144).

But, bearing in mind that an English liquidator may seek to disclaim a Scottish site or licence, doesn’t this overstep the mark of matters reserved to Westminster?

The judges thought not. “The purpose of the CARs as a whole, and the provisions relating to a liquidator in particular, is an environmental one. Neither the CARs as a whole, nor the provisions relating to liquidators, have as their purpose an insolvency objective. The effect on liquidators of companies possessing a CARs licence is no more than a loose or consequential connection. In all the circumstances, those provisions of the CARs which are said to restrict the power of a liquidator cannot be said to relate to reserved matters. They are, accordingly, not outwith the competence of the Scottish Parliament by reason of section 29(2)(b) of the [Scotland] 1998 Act” (paragraph 156). True, “the CARs have an effect on the practicalities of insolvency. However, more than that is required in order to place them beyond the devolved competence of the Scottish Parliament. If, contrary to the views expressed above, the CARs have modified the law on reserved matters (and in particular any of those aspects of the law of corporate insolvency which are listed under head C2 of schedule 5 to the 1998 Act), it remains the case that any such modifications are incidental to, and consequential on, provisions in the CARs relating to environmental matters, which are not reserved, and only to an extent that is necessary to give effect to the environmental purpose of the CARs” (paragraph 160).

So can an English liquidator disclaim a Scottish site or licence?

“An English liquidation may involve disclaimer of property held anywhere in the world and the liquidation process, and any final dividend upon dissolution, may proceed accordingly. However, the manner in which heritable property is actually disposed of is a matter to be determined by the lex situs (the law where the property is situated). Whatever the powers of a liquidator may be in terms of the law under which the liquidation is processed, the property will not transmit from the company unless that is achieved in accordance with the law applying where the land is located” (paragraph 126).

The Outcome

Therefore, the Inner House reversed the earlier decision and directed that the liquidators do not have the power to abandon (otherwise disclaim) the sites or the statutory licences.

Some commentators have hinted at the prospect of a Supreme Court appeal.

Personally, this outcome leaves me with the following questions:

• If the costs of meeting the ongoing obligations under such statutory licences rank as a liquidation expense, could companies involved in potentially environmentally-damaging, licensed, activities in Scotland find that their access to credit dries up?

• Although English liquidators have specific power to disclaim onerous property – and I don’t know how the English equivalent of the CARs are worded – how does this stack up against legislation implementing an EU Directive, which presumably is felt by all of the UK, with the overriding objective of environmental protection?