Crisis management & insolvency

In brief

• The Consent Protocol: key powers.

On 28 March 2020, the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) announced a series of insolvency legislation reforms including a new court-based restructuring tool modelled on the Scheme of Arrangement and a short business rescue moratorium to protect companies facing the prospect of insolvency while they establish a rescue plan. While it is hoped that these new tools will provide a lifeline to many companies being pushed to the brink of insolvency as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, the full detail of the proposals and the relevant legislation remain unclear.

In the meantime, the insolvency profession has been gearing up to adapt the insolvency tools we currently have to meet the crisis, and in particular advocating the ‘light touch’ administration (currently being trialled by Debenhams, among others), whereby the administrators leave certain management powers and, essentially, the day-to-day running of the business with directors while they focus on