Welcome to the Autumn edition of our combined finance, restructuring and insolvency bulletin.
Since our last bulletin we have welcomed a number of new members to our finance, restructuring and insolvency team. We welcome Kamila Gomolka and Laura Burge as paralegals in the finance team and Slavi Stoencheva as an associate specialising in restructuring and insolvency. We hope you will have the opportunity to meet or work with them (lucky you!) over the coming months.
This combined edition of the bulletin covers both banking & finance and restructuring & insolvency matters for our faithful readers.
Following on from COP26, ESG is a hot topic in the legal world at the moment as the UK races (or limps, depending on your views) towards net zero. In the world of finance, we have seen the government publish its ambitious "Greening Finance" policy paper which we cover in more detail below and which, although commendable in its aims, will create significant new disclosure obligations for many parties.
In other news, the Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill has just landed, providing details of the highly anticipated rent arbitration scheme and other associated protections. This Bill is hot off the press, so check back to our website here for our detailed update on the topic shortly. Otherwise, we are still waiting for the ball to drop for insolvencies after the lifting of many of the restrictions around winding-up petitions from 1 October 2021. We have already seen an upturn in the number of CVLs perhaps in anticipation of hostile creditor action following many months being held at bay, and over the coming months we might expect to see an increased utilisation of the freestanding moratorium for companies to take some breathing space from their creditors. However, while extended restrictions on forfeiture and commercial rent arrears recovery continue, the full tidal wave of enforcement action is unlikely to hit UK companies just yet.
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Jonathan Porteous
Tim Carter
Andrew Dodds