Insights

As the legislators add further chains and manacles to the bank’s position, the banks engineer ways to avoid them, escape from them and, in so doing, undermine efforts to constrain them.

On 22 October 2006 European Home Retail PLC (EHR) appointed Administrative Receivers (PWC), under a debenture granted to HBOS in 2000. Not something earth shattering, in itself, but the timing – 8 weeks to Christmas (that’s around 56 more sleeps) sent reverberations through the press (Smithers, 2006 for example), the banks, the consuming public and the corridors of power.

When the Insolvency Act 1986 was written, pride of place, Part 1 of the Act, was dedicated to the Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA). Not hidden in Chapter 17, sub-section A (iii) paragraph 22(z) but there, on the first page, heralding a new era of corporate recovery and rehabilitation.

“Poor management” is often a key reason given for the insolvency and failure of businesses, and this is explored, as well as what facilitates poor management.

In this month's Insolvency blog, Keith Pond analyses the difference between Phoenixism and Pre-Pack deals.