Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

This very important Bill is set for House of Commons passage this Wednesday (3rd June), and is expected to proceed to the House of Lords on 9th June. You will be able to see updates on the passage of the Bill online here.

BEIS have published factsheets here on the gov.uk website. These are designed to explain the detail of the Bill in a more accessible way, and answer some of the questions people may have.

The factsheets cover:

  1. Overview of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill                                                                     
  2. Summary of Retrospective Provisions
  3. Financial Services Exclusions
  4. Moratoriums
  5. Restructuring
  6. Statutory Demands and Winding Up Petitions
  7. Wrongful Trading
  8. Termination Clauses
  9. Annual General Meetings
  10. Filings
  11. Delegated and Henry VIII powers.

I have been asked by my contact at BEIS to please share these as widely as possible amongst your stakeholders, and do pass back any feedback or queries we can help with.

My main worry about this new Insolvency Process is the cost of the monitor, who will be an insolvency practitioner. It is not at all clear how much the monitor will wish to charge for their services.

The bill also contains provisions re AGMs. These are temporary. Most notably it means that, for a temporary period, companies and other bodies will be able to suspend shareholders’ and members’ ability to attend meetings in person and that they will be able to convene meetings in a flexible way using a range of technologies. We have written to BEIS explaining our disapproval of companies that do not go down the hybrid route or do not have a ZOOM-type meeting before the AGM so that questions can be raised before votes have to be cast. BEIS have not listened to our views.

Letter-to-BEIS-FRC-FCA-April-2020-v4-clean

Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc

One comment
  1. rogerwlawson says:

    A very good letter to BEIS on the subject of AGMs. Some small companies have provided excellent examples of how to run virtual or hybrid AGMs already, but even some big companies have failed to provide adequate facilities in many cases.

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