Our government has a longstanding commitment to cutting red tape.  One of the ways of doing this it seems is to propose an Act of Parliament running to 153 pages. Thus we are presented with the Deregulation Bill.

A few of the provisions of this Bill relate to insolvency.  The most significant are:-

  • The creation of a status of "partial authorisation" for insolvency practitioners.  This will allow for the authorisation of insolvency practitioners who only take personal cases (not corporate cases) or who only take corporate cases (not personal cases). The new status of "partial authorisation" would therefore create three classes of insolvency practitioners.  Those who are only permitted to act in personal cases, those who are only permitted to act in corporate cases and those who are permitted to act in both types.   This innovation has not been well received by all as there are perceived to be a number of concerns (including the risks of a partially authorised IP not being able to deal appropriately with all aspects of cases, additional internal compliance work for firms and a risk of confusion in the minds of the public).
  • The Bill also proposes an amendment to Schedule B1 to the Insolvency Act. The Bill proposes that an administration appointment would still be possible even though a petition has been presented and not been disposed of at the time of the appointment provided that a notice of intention to appoint administrators had been filed with the Court prior to the date of presentation of the petition.  This addresses the risk that a notice of intention to appoint is filed in one court with a subsequent petition for winding up being presented in another court.

Of course, these are only proposals contained in a Bill.  There is no certainty that these will come into law in their current proposed form.

© MacRoberts 2014

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