Receivership order meaning

The circumstances in which an incumbent office-holder needs to resign from their appointment are: ill-health retiring as, or stopping practice as, a licensed insolvency practitioner (IP) a conflict of interest, or a shift in personal circumstances, that prevents or renders impracticable the continued performance of duties Examples include curtailment or withdrawal of the IP’s licence to act, the IP changing firm with appointments not transferring, or alternative arrangements being put in place for those appointments. This Checklist should be read alongside the Checklist on the block transfer of office-holder appointments: Procedure for block transfers of office-holder appointments—checklist, as a block transfer order can often be the speediest and most economical means of addressing the situation. Further guidance appears in the Practice Note: Block transfer orders—the law and practice. An office-holder can also be displaced by creditors, which may need to be factored in. For more detail, see: Removal of an office-holder—checklist. While the various insolvency regimes share broadly...

Direct Investments Ltd (a company in receivership incorporated in the British Virgin Islands) v Mittal-Goenka [2026] EWHC 460 (Comm) What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling illustrates that a party cannot sidestep an earlier case management direction by claiming circumstances have shifted, or by repackaging the order of issues, simply by altering its stance at all. Where the court has ordered particularisation of foreign law, that requirement stands unless successfully appealed or varied. A litigant who pleads foreign law but does not pinpoint the precise principles relied on risks being barred from pursuing the argument at all. The court further made clear that FS Cairo (Nile Plaza) LLC v Brownlie [2021] UKSC 45 neither dispenses with proper pleadings nor permits postponement of particularisation. In practical terms, once foreign law is put in play, it must be stated with clarity, and any case management order addressing it is binding unless and until it is formally reconsidered. What was the background? The claimant, Direct Investments...

Altrad Investment Authority SAS and others v Protopapas and others [2025] EWHC 2470 (Ch) What was the background? This dispute centred on Cape Intermediate Holdings Ltd (CIHL), an English company that previously engaged in asbestos extraction and is now within the Altrad group. In 2021, a claim was brought in South Carolina by Ms Isabella Park against numerous defendants including Cape Plc, and CIHL was later joined as a defendant in November 2021. On 6 March 2023, an application for receivership was submitted to appoint a receiver over CIHL, predicated on the alleged US presence and activities of North American Asbestos Corporation (NAAC), a dissolved CIHL subsidiary. The receivership order was granted on 16 March 2023 without a hearing, naming Mr Peter Protopapas as receiver. In reliance on that order, Mr Protopapas brought third‑party proceedings in June 2023 within distinct South Carolina litigation (the Tibbs Proceedings), advancing claims against several Cape group companies and Altrad entities. Both the receivership and the third‑party claims rested on a contention that...

What are the practical implications of this case? This judgment underscores the English court’s capacity to deliver adaptable relief suited to disputes with an international dimension, reflecting a flexible, context‑sensitive approach. The court approved the approach in Schemmer v Property Resources Ltd [1975] 1 Ch 273, setting out how the English courts should evaluate whether an overseas receiver’s appointment is to be recognised in this forum. In Schemmer, the court stated that it must first be satisfied that there exists a sufficient connection between the company and the jurisdiction in which the foreign receiver was appointed. Applying that yardstick here, and as in Schemmer v Property, the required connection was not present, and accordingly recognition could not be afforded on these facts by the court here...

Liquidation Following enforcement of security by fixed charge creditors for their own benefit, the order of distributions in a winding up is: if liquidation commences within 12 weeks of a moratorium, any unpaid moratorium debts and ‘priority pre‑moratorium debts’ to which no payment holiday applied during the moratorium expenses properly incurred in the winding up (including the liquidator’s remuneration) ordinary preferential debts secondary preferential debts the prescribed part for unsecured creditors (where not disapplied) debts secured by floating charges unsecured debts statutory interest postponed debts (i.e. non‑provable liabilities) return of any surplus to members (subject to adjustment between members) For further details, see Practice Note: Waterfall of payments in liquidation...

This Practice Note covers: the impact of an insolvency process on ongoing litigation where the debtor, bankrupt or insolvent company is a claimant or defendant how an insolvency process interacts with an arbitration agreement binding the debtor, bankrupt or insolvent company additional considerations in a cross-border setting Personal insolvency What happens when the bankrupt is a claimant in ongoing proceedings? The presentation of a bankruptcy petition, whether by a creditor or by the debtor, has no legal consequence for proceedings already on foot where the debtor is the claimant. Once a bankruptcy order is made and a trustee in bankruptcy (the trustee) is appointed, most causes of action in which the bankrupt has an interest vest in the trustee under section 306 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (IA 1986). In such circumstances, it is the trustee, rather than the bankrupt, who has standing to carry on the claim. The trustee will proceed only if that course best serves the interests...

In both corporate and personal insolvency, office-holders chiefly gather the company’s or individual’s assets, realise them and distribute the proceeds to creditors in accordance with the statutory waterfall. For more detail, consult the following Practice Notes: Waterfall of payments—a comparative guide Waterfall of payments in administration Waterfall of payments in liquidation Waterfall of payments in bankruptcy Waterfall of payments in administrative receivership Pari passu distribution Pari passu, a Latin term, translates as ‘with an equal step’ or ‘on equal footing’. In insolvency, it captures the principle of proportionality and is used to describe how creditors are treated relative to one another. Where claims rank ‘pari passu’, all creditors within the same class are paid alike, with no one preferred. If funds are insufficient to satisfy debts in full, distributions are made pro rata on a pari passu basis, so each receives a proportionate return. For instance, unsecured creditors (ie creditors in the same category) might receive 10p...