An Act to consolidate the enactments relating to company insolvency and winding up (including the winding up of companies that are not insolvent, and of unregistered companies); enactments relating to the insolvency and bankruptcy of individuals; and other enactments bearing on those two subject matters, including the functions and qualification of insolvency practitioners, the public administration of insolvency, the penalisation and redress of malpractice and wrongdoing, and the avoidance of certain transactions at an undervalue
The Insolvency Act 1986 (c. 45) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that provides the legal platform for all matters relating to personal and corporate insolvency in the UK.
Elements of the Act were updated by the Enterprise Act 2002, which came into effect on 1 April 2004 and introduced amongst other things the popular "out-of-court" administration route,[1] and the allocation of a limited amount of funding released from assets, known as the "prescribed part", which could be made available to support ordinary unsecured creditors ahead of secured creditors. This limit was initially £600,000, but it was increased to £800,000 by the Insolvency Act 1986 (Prescribed Part) (Amendment) Order 2020 (SI 211/2020) on 6 April 2020 to maintain the real value of the limit.[2][3]
Those considering the main Act should also refer to the Insolvency Rules 1986 and numerous Regulations and other amending legislation since 1986, and also to the best practice which applies to the administration of formal insolvency matters set out in the Statements of Insolvency Practice (SIPs)Archived 10 March 2014 at the Wayback Machine[4] approved by the insolvency practitioner authorising bodies.
Further updates to the Act were made by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020, which provided a moratorium for companies that were likely to become insolvent and gave additional reliefs for businesses that were adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chapter I - Receivers and Managers (England and Wales)
Chapter II - Receivers (Scotland)
Chapter III - Receivers Powers in Great Britain as a whole
Part IV - Winding Up of Companies Registered Under the Companies Acts (ss 73-219)
Chapter I - Preliminary
Chapter II - Voluntary Winding Up (Introductory and General)
Chapter III - Members' Voluntary Winding Up (ss 91-96)
Chapter IV - Creditors' Voluntary Winding Up (ss 97-106)
Chapter V - Provisions Applying to both kinds of Winding up
Chapter VI - Winding Up by the Court (ss 117-162)
Chapter VII - Liquidators
Chapter VIII - Provisions of general application in winding up
Chapter IX - Dissolution of companies after winding up
Chapter X - Malpractice before and during Liquidation; Penalisation of companies and company officers; Investigations and prosecutions (ss 206-219). Section 213 lies within this part, and provides for individuals who are aware that business has been carried on with the intent to defraud the company's creditors to be called upon to contribute to the company’s assets.
Part V - Winding Up Unregistered Companies (ss 220-229)
Part VI - Miscellaneous Provisions applying to Companies which are Insolvent or in Liquidation
Part VII - Interpretation for first group of parts
Insolvency of individuals – bankruptcy
Part VIII - Individual Voluntary Arrangements
Part IX - Bankruptcy (ss 264-371)
Chapter I - Bankruptcy Petitions - Bankruptcy Orders
Chapter II - Protection of Bankrupt's Estate and Investigation of his Affairs
Chapter III - Trustees in Bankruptcy
Chapter IV - Administration by Trustee
Chapter V - Effect of Bankruptcy on certain rights, transactions etc.
Chapter VI - Bankruptcy Offences
Chapter VII - Powers of Court in Bankruptcy
Part X - Individual Insolvency: General Provisions
Part XI - Interpretation for second group of parts
Miscellaneous matters
Part XII - Preferential debts in company and individual insolvency
Part XIII - Insolvency Practitioners and their qualifications (ss 338-398)
Part XIV - Public Administration (ss 399-410)
Part XV - Subordinate Legislation
Part XVI - Provisions against debt avoidance (England and Wales Only)
Part XVII - Miscellaneous and General
Part XVIII - Interpretation
Part XIX - Final Provisions
Schedules
Schedule B1, on the new administration procedure after the Enterprise Act 2002.
Notes
↑ Lyndon Norley, Kirkland & Ellis International LLP and Joseph Swanson and Peter Marshall, Houlihan Lokey (2008). A Practitioner's Guide to Corporate Restructuring. City & Financial Publishing, 1st edition ISBN978-1-905121-31-1
Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor.
Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end. The assets and property of the business are redistributed. When a firm has been liquidated, it is sometimes referred to as wound-up or dissolved, although dissolution technically refers to the last stage of liquidation. The process of liquidation also arises when customs, an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties, determines the final computation or ascertainment of the duties or drawback accruing on an entry.
A creditor or lender is a party that has a claim on the services of a second party. It is a person or institution to whom money is owed. The first party, in general, has provided some property or service to the second party under the assumption that the second party will return an equivalent property and service. The second party is frequently called a debtor or borrower. The first party is called the creditor, which is the lender of property, service, or money.
In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company (debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be insolvent. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet insolvency.
Bankruptcy in the United Kingdom is divided into separate local regimes for England and Wales, for Northern Ireland, and for Scotland. There is also a UK insolvency law which applies across the United Kingdom, since bankruptcy refers only to insolvency of individuals and partnerships. Other procedures, for example administration and liquidation, apply to insolvent companies. However, the term 'bankruptcy' is often used when referring to insolvent companies in the general media.
An officer of the Insolvency Service of the United Kingdom, an official receiver (OR) is an officer of the court to which they are attached. The OR is answerable to the courts for carrying out the courts' orders and for fulfilling their duties under law. They also act on directions, instructions and guidance from the service's Inspector General or, less often, from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
The Enterprise Act 2002 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which made major changes to UK competition law with respect to mergers and also changed the law governing insolvency bankruptcy. It made cartels illegal with a maximum prison sentence of 5 years and states that level of competition in a market should be the basis for investigation.
As a legal concept, administration is a procedure under the insolvency laws of a number of common law jurisdictions, similar to bankruptcy in the United States. It functions as a rescue mechanism for insolvent entities and allows them to carry on running their business. The process – in the United Kingdom colloquially called being "under administration" – is an alternative to liquidation or may be a precursor to it. Administration is commenced by an administration order.
Debt relief orders (DROs) are a simplified, quicker and cheaper alternative to bankruptcy as an insolvency measure in the United Kingdom, which came into effect in England and Wales on 6 April 2009, and are also offered in Northern Ireland.
United Kingdom insolvency law regulates companies in the United Kingdom which are unable to repay their debts. While UK bankruptcy law concerns the rules for natural persons, the term insolvency is generally used for companies formed under the Companies Act 2006. Insolvency means being unable to pay debts. Since the Cork Report of 1982, the modern policy of UK insolvency law has been to attempt to rescue a company that is in difficulty, to minimise losses and fairly distribute the burdens between the community, employees, creditors and other stakeholders that result from enterprise failure. If a company cannot be saved it is liquidated, meaning that the assets are sold off to repay creditors according to their priority. The main sources of law include the Insolvency Act 1986, the Insolvency Rules 1986, the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, the Employment Rights Act 1996 Part XII, the EU Insolvency Regulation, and case law. Numerous other Acts, statutory instruments and cases relating to labour, banking, property and conflicts of laws also shape the subject.
The Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 forms part of UK company law and sets out the procedures for company directors to be disqualified in certain cases of misconduct.
According to the Office for National Statistics, sole proprietors represented 23.8% of all UK enterprise in 2010. Of that number, more than half a million sole traders were operating via the PAYE or VAT system alone. Sole traders are a distinct legal entity, operating as one type of UK business structure. In the event of financial problems affecting the business, they are subject to different rules to those that govern companies.
Commercial insolvency in Canada has options and procedures that are distinct from those available in consumer insolvency proceedings. It is governed by the following statutes:
The Winding-up and Restructuring Act is a statute of the Parliament of Canada that provides for the winding up of certain corporations and the restructuring of financial institutions. It was passed in 1985, and has been amended since. Predecessors of the act date back to 1882.
The British Virgin Islands company law is the law that governs businesses registered in the British Virgin Islands. It is primarily codified through the BVI Business Companies Act, 2004, and to a lesser extent by the Insolvency Act, 2003 and by the Securities and Investment Business Act, 2010. The British Virgin Islands has approximately 30 registered companies per head of population, which is likely the highest ratio of any country in the world. Annual company registration fees provide a significant part of Government revenue in the British Virgin Islands, which accounts for the comparative lack of other taxation. This might explain why company law forms a much more prominent part of the law of the British Virgin Islands when compared to countries of similar size.
British Virgin Islands bankruptcy law is principally codified in the Insolvency Act, 2003, and to a lesser degree in the Insolvency Rules, 2005. Most of the emphasis of bankruptcy law in the British Virgin Islands relates to corporate insolvency rather than personal bankruptcy. As an offshore financial centre, the British Virgin Islands has many times more resident companies than citizens, and accordingly the courts spend more time dealing with corporate insolvency and reorganisation.
Cayman Islands bankruptcy law is principally codified in five statutes and statutory instruments:
Anguillan bankruptcy law regulates the position of individuals and companies who are unable to meet their financial obligations.
Australian insolvency law regulates the position of companies which are in financial distress and are unable to pay or provide for all of their debts or other obligations, and matters ancillary to and arising from financial distress. The law in this area is principally governed by the Corporations Act 2001. Under Australian law, the term insolvency is usually used with reference to companies, and bankruptcy is used in relation to individuals. Insolvency law in Australia tries to seek an equitable balance between the competing interests of debtors, creditors and the wider community when debtors are unable to meet their financial obligations. The aim of the legislative provisions is to provide:
Hong Kong insolvency law regulates the position of companies which are in financial distress and are unable to pay or provide for all of their debts or other obligations, and matters ancillary to and arising from financial distress. The law in this area is now primarily governed by the Companies Ordinance and the Companies Rules. Prior to 2012 Cap 32 was called the Companies Ordinance, but when the Companies Ordinance came into force in 2014, most of the provisions of Cap 32 were repealed except for the provisions relating to insolvency, which were retained and the statute was renamed to reflect its new principal focus.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
