El-Husseiny: more than an academic judgment?

• The El-Husseiny judgment is the first time that the Supreme Court has considered in detail the scope of s 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986, as well as ss 238 and 339.

Lady Rose and Lord Richards’ judgment in El-Husseiny and another v Invest Bank PSC [2025] UKSC 4 is as academic as it is important.

It is academic because by the time of its publication on 19 February 2025, Mr Justice Calver had already dismissed all of Invest Bank PSC’s claims under s 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986 at trial on the basis that it had failed to establish that the debtor had acted for the purpose of prejudicing his creditors, as required by s 423(3) of the Act (see Invest Bank PSC v El-Husseini and others [2024] EWHC 2976 (Comm)).

At the same time, it is important