Insolvency barristers for companies, directors, creditors and office holders.

• Winding up petitions, opposition, and injunctions restraining presentation or advertisement.
• Bankruptcy petitions, statutory demands and applications to set them aside.
• Administration applications, challenges to administrators and out of court appointments.
• Transactions at an undervalue and preferences under sections 238 and 239 of the Insolvency Act 1986.
• Transactions defrauding creditors under section 423.
• Wrongful and fraudulent trading, and misfeasance applications under section 212.
• Director disqualification proceedings, undertakings and section 17 permission applications.
• Validation orders, office holder remuneration disputes and applications for directions.
• Cross border insolvency under the Cross Border Insolvency Regulations 2006 and recognition applications.
• Restructuring plans, schemes of arrangement and company voluntary arrangement challenges.

Restructuring work reaches counsel earlier than contentious insolvency, usually while options are still open. That includes advice on the viability of a company voluntary arrangement, the fairness of a restructuring plan under Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006, the treatment of dissenting classes, and whether a proposed pre pack survives the connected party evaluator regime.

The advisory work matters because most of the arguments that will be run later are made or lost at this stage. A CVA whose terms treat landlords differently from other unsecured creditors will attract a challenge, and the drafting of the proposal determines whether that challenge succeeds. Counsel who argue those challenges are the right people to review the proposal before it is put.

For lenders and secured creditors we advise on the enforceability of security, the validity of floating charges granted within the relevant period, priority disputes and the practical route to appointment.

Directors of a failed company face several distinct exposures, and they often arrive together. Wrongful trading under section 214, misfeasance for breach of the duties now codified in the Companies Act 2006, personal liability on an overdrawn director loan account, liability under a personal guarantee, and disqualification proceedings brought by the Secretary of State.

These claims are document led. The contemporaneous board minutes, management accounts, cash flow forecasts and professional advice taken at the time are almost always the strongest material available, and they are far more persuasive if counsel has reviewed them before you respond to the office holder's first request for information.

Where a disqualification undertaking is offered, both the period and the schedule of unfit conduct are negotiable. That is a decision with consequences measured in years, and it should not be taken without advice on what the alternative looks like at trial.

A personal insolvency barrister acts on statutory demands and the short set aside window, opposed bankruptcy petitions, annulment under section 282 and rescission under section 375, income payments orders and agreements, and trustee in bankruptcy claims over the family home and other property.

Third party interests come up constantly. A spouse or cohabitee asserting a beneficial interest in a property the trustee wants to sell needs their own evidence and their own advocate, and applications under section 335A carry a presumption in favour of sale after a year that has to be met with something specific.

Bankruptcy restrictions orders and undertakings, and applications for permission to act as a director notwithstanding bankruptcy, complete the picture for individuals who intend to continue in business.

Construction insolvency raises problems that do not arise elsewhere. Adjudication enforcement where the referring party is in liquidation engages the Bresco and Meadowside line of authority, and whether enforcement is granted turns on the availability of security for cross claims and adverse costs.

Retention monies, project bank accounts, trust arguments, performance bonds and parent company guarantees all behave differently when a contractor or employer enters administration mid project. Termination provisions, step in rights under collateral warranties and the effect of section 233B on supplier termination clauses need to be worked through quickly.

We place construction insolvency barristers who are comfortable in both regimes rather than specialists in one who are guessing at the other.

In insolvency the gap between advocacy and conduct is unusually narrow. The knowledge that wins the hearing is the same knowledge that gets a petition properly issued, served, certified and listed. A litigation authorised barrister can do both, which removes a handover at exactly the point where the deadlines are tightest.

For a creditor that means one person prepares and issues the petition, deals with service and the certificates required by the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016, and pursues it to a winding up or bankruptcy order. For a company or debtor under attack it means the application to set aside or to restrain can be made inside the short windows the rules allow.

Where an office holder already has solicitors on record we place counsel in the conventional way, for advice, drafting and advocacy on recoveries, disqualification work and applications for directions.

Insolvency work follows the Business and Property Courts. London matters go to the Insolvency and Companies Court in the Rolls Building, and the district registries in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Newcastle and Nottingham take the equivalent work for their regions.

We place a mix of local counsel and London counsel who travel, and a good deal of insolvency listing is now dealt with remotely, which widens the field of counsel available for any given hearing.