Corporate Restructuring & Insolvency

Key insolvency and restructuring services

Our expert team of lawyers can help you in the following restructuring and insolvency areas:

• transactional insolvency (buying and selling distressed businesses and assets);
• contentious insolvency (disputes, potential claims and litigation);
• insolvency and restructuring advisory (everything else, including procedural input);
• options in event of financial distress;
• business turnaround and corporate restructuring;
• effect of all forms of formal insolvency procedure including applicable moratoria;
• employees in insolvent situations;
• negotiation and realisation of assets, including debts and bankruptcy properties;
• cross-border insolvency;
• exposures (including risk of prosecution) arising on insolvency and phoenixism;
• powers and duties of office holders, including appointments;
• administration of insolvent businesses and estates;
• all forms of litigation under insolvency legislation, including bankruptcy annulment;
• directors duties and disqualification; and
• enforcement of creditor / landlord rights in insolvent situations.

Our insolvency clients

The team’s insolvency practitioner clients include:

• RSM
• Begbies Traynor
• James Cowper Kreston
• KPMG
• Mazars
• Portland Business & Financial Solutions
• Smith & Williamson
• Quantuma

We also act for and/or on referrals from:

• funders e.g. banks, building societies, asset-based lenders
• domestic and overseas suppliers, trading partners, landlords, other creditors
• company directors
• bankrupts, their spouses and other family members and guarantors
• non-IP LPA receivers
• non-specialist solicitors

Examples of restructuring and insolvency work

• In recent years the team undertook its single largest assignment to date, assisting the administrators of a major chain of convenience stores to maximise realisations and save jobs through the disposal of numerous trading outlets and associated premises.
• Acting for various insolvency practitioners in claims against third parties and assets including bankruptcy involving unregistered commercial land in London and an administration involving a disputed charge over the assets of a bus company
• Advising various creditors with their claims in insolvencies, including one who was a secured creditor seeking to protect a multi-million pound VAT appeal recovery
• Pursuing and defending various claims for misfeasance, wrongful trading and disqualification against directors of limited companies, including one with a claim value in excess of £4m
• Advising overseas investors and professional trustee executors on legal transactional and restructuring options for leisure industry interests, including hotels and golf venues both in and outside of CVAs
• Assisting with numerous sales by or acquisitions from insolvency practitioners, including purchases of a theme park and the assets of a Channel Islands based shipping company and freight forwarder, and sales of multiple convenience stores from administration
• Assisting colleagues in the firm’s corporate, commercial property and banking teams on aspects of a major refinancing and redevelopment project with an aggregate deal consideration of around £72m
• Advising various spouses of bankrupt individuals on defending claims being made by the bankrupt’s trustees in bankruptcy in respect of preferences and/or transaction at undervalue claims.
• Advising company directors’ on the use of ‘prohibited names’ under section 216 Insolvency Act 1986 and the exemptions available to them to avoid criminal prosecution

• Acting for insolvency practitioners to assist them in bringing applications under the Insolvency Act 1986 for increases to their fee remuneration.
• Advising bankrupt individuals generally as to their rights when considering the position of their trustees in bankruptcy.