Insolvency & Restructuring
Our Insolvency & Restructuring team is ideally positioned to advise on all aspects of insolvency, restructuring and corporate recoveries.
With two qualified insolvency practitioners and a team comprising lawyers who have previously worked for insolvency firms and/or as secondees to high-street lenders, the Insolvency and Restructuring team has the experience you need to achieve your objectives.
Our team acts for lenders, insolvency practitioners, creditors, directors and other stakeholders in circumstances where a company or individual is insolvent, experiencing financial difficulties or is the victim of a business critical event such as fraud.
All of those affected have one thing in common – they want quick, proactive and commercial advice. Given our extensive experience and breadth of practice, this is exactly what we do – working together to save businesses, save jobs and maximise recoveries for the benefit of stakeholders.
The team’s core practice includes non-contentious insolvency and restructuring advice; fraud, contentious insolvency and investigations; recoveries for lenders and advice in relation to LPA receiverships; and business litigation.
The team is also supported by experts in the fields of corporate, real estate, finance, employment, pensions and intellectual property – all of whom have experience of insolvency situations and managing financial difficulties.
We advise on:
- Administrations
- Liquidations
- Bankruptcies
- Members’ voluntary liquidations (solvent)
- Individual voluntary arrangements
- LPA and Fixed Charge receiverships
- Provisional liquidations
- Restructuring
- Fraud and investigations
- Distressed asset acquisition
- Business Litigation
- Restructuring Plans
- Company Voluntary Arrangements (CVAs)
- Schemes of arrangement
News
Wedlake Bell Insolvency and Restructuring Partner Appointed to Government’s Insolvency Rules Committee
Wedlake Bell Partner Robert Paterson has been appointed, by the UK government, to The Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) Insolvency Rules Committee. Alex Chalk KC, Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, confirmed… Read more →
News
Edward Fennell’s Legal Diary: The significance of the Insolvency Service Statistics for April-June 2022
“Signs of distress are increasing with the latest Insolvency Service statistics released on 2 August for the Q2 to June 22. If not a “tsunami” as was predicted at the… Read more →
Bulletins
Smile Telecoms Holdings Ltd [2022] EWHC 740 (Ch) Out of the Money Creditors Exclusion.
The application in Re Smile Telecoms Holdings Ltd [2022] EWHC 740 (Ch) deals with a number of questions: what constitutes a “compromise or arrangement” for the purpose of Part 26A… Read more →
Bulletins
Philipp v Barclays Bank PLC
The judgment of the Court of Appeal in Philipp v Barclays Bank UK Plc [2022] EWCA Civ 318 is helpful to victims of fraud. It deals with what is often… Read more →
News
Bankruptcy and overseas pension schemes
There has been a further judgment in the Wilson & Maloney v McNamara litigation. The High Court had referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) during the Brexit… Read more →
News
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy v Lord [2022] EWHC 21 (Ch)
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy v Lord [2022] EWHC 21 (Ch) is a judgment of Deputy ICC Judge Paul Greenwood on an application under s 6 Company… Read more →
Bulletins
AFM and The Great Gatsby- FM (1932) Limited & Ors v Belisco Estates Ltd [2021] EWHC 3460 (Ch)
AFM (1932) Limited & Ors v Belisco Estates Ltd [2021] EWHC 3460 (Ch) is of passing interest to fans of F Scott Fitzgerald and anyone who is interested in what constitutes… Read more →
News
Doran v County Rentals Ltd – Winding up Petition Dismissed at Preliminary Hearing – Covid
Doran v County Rentals Ltd (t/a Hunters) [2021] EWHC 3372 (Ch) is a reserved judgment of HHJ Cadwallader, sitting as a High Court judge, on a rare, indeed possibly so… Read more →
Bulletins
Broad Idea International Ltd v Convoy Collateral Ltd (British Virgin Island) [2021] UKPC 24 – No Substantive Proceedings Required for Freezing Order
Freezing orders (indeed injunctions of all kinds) are an important tool in litigation, so a judgment of the Privy Council on the subject is worthy of attention, especially when it… Read more →
News
Gostelow & Anor v Hussain & Ors – Use of application notices in bankruptcy
Gostelow & Anor v Hussain & Ors [2021] EWHC 3276 (Ch) deals with a number of issues concerning applications by a trustee in bankruptcy to sell property occupied by the… Read more →
Bulletins
Park v CNH – Oh, what a tangled web we weave
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave…when first we practice to deceive.” The truth of Walter Scott’s well known quotation (from his poem “Marmion”) is amply illustrated by the decision… Read more →
Bulletins
Williams v Nilsson – Establishing Common Intention
The recent decision in Williams v Nilsson illustrates two points. The first is that establishing interests in a trust of property is an exercise in establishing common intention. The second is the… Read more →
News
Richmondshire District Council v Dealmaster Ltd – challenging debts in CVA
Richmondshire District Council v Dealmaster Ltd [2021] EWHC 2892 was an application under a 6 Insolvency Act 1986 and/or r 15.35 Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 for orders revoking… Read more →
News
Walker v Official Receiver – The perils of selling an unrealised asset.
The court in this decision had to consider an application for permission to bring a claim against the Official Receiver alleging that a property had been sold at an undervalue.… Read more →
News
Company Voluntary Arrangements in the UK – a longer tail than Covid?
Oscar Wilde wrote “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”. I don’t think landlords have the same… Read more →
Bulletins
Notice of Intention to Appoint – ‘strong and stable’ guidance from the Court of Appeal
The Court of Appeal has recently had the opportunity to provide some certainty in relation to when it is appropriate to file a Notice of Intention to Appoint an Administrator… Read more →
Bulletins
No Variation clauses – are they cast iron?
The Court of Appeal decision of Globe Motors and others v TRW Lucas and others considered the effectiveness of no variation clauses which we so often see in contracts. These… Read more →
Bulletins
Is asking Gollum about his precious ring a viable recovery strategy?
Liquidators and Trustees in Bankruptcy have wide ranging powers to apply to the Court for the delivery up of information that relates to the affairs of the bankrupt or the… Read more →
Bulletins
General costs rules apply to appeal against bankruptcy order
The High Court has held that Rule 12.2 of the Insolvency Rules 1986 (“IR 1986”), which provides that costs incurred in bankruptcy proceedings are to be regarded as expenses of… Read more →
[The firm] draws on its stand-out insolvency practice to attract really interesting civil fraud work, often with an insolvency angle.
— Legal 500, 2022