Removal and replacement of office-holders

Why replace an insolvency office-holder?

The following circumstances may give rise to the need to replace an insolvency office-holder:

•
the death of an office-holder
•
the retirement of an office-holder from practice
•
dissatisfaction with the office-holder by a stakeholder, or
•
where an office-holder is otherwise unable or unwilling to continue in office

When an office-holder is replaced, it will be necessary for the newly-appointed office-holder to take over the conduct of the insolvency case in a smooth manner.

In the event that a change of office-holder occurs due to death, retirement or where an office-holder is otherwise unable or unwilling to continue in office (where they change firms or lose their licence to practice due to regulatory action) then a block transfer procedure is in place which allows for a bulk transfer of insolvency cases to one or more office-holders. This is generally likely not to be contentious.

Removal of an office-holder due to dissatisfaction in an individual insolvency case may be more contentious, depending on the circumstances.

Administrators

While

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Restructuring & Insolvency weekly highlights—20 February 2025

This week's edition of Restructuring & Insolvency weekly highlights includes: the High Court’s sanctioning of Thames Water’s restructuring plan, the Supreme Court’s decision in relation to transactions defrauding creditors (El-Husseiny v Invest Bank PSC), an analysis on a judgment that tested the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (Nikolay Fetisov and Ilya Yurov v PJSC National Bank Trust), a closer look at a judgment that offers significant guidance on information-gathering powers in cross-border insolvencies (Re Farfetch Ltd (in liquidation)), plus a round-up of other news and cases for restructuring and insolvency professionals.

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Restructuring & Insolvency analysis: This judgment concerned two sets of legal proceedings connected to allegations of serious dishonesty, fraudulent activity and abusive litigation tactics by various parties to obstruct the enforcement of a judgment. Dr Smith and Mr Ruhan had been long-term adversaries in prolonged and bitter litigation against each other. However, they formed the ‘unholiest of unholy alliances’ in colluding in a scheme to frustrate Hotel Portfolio II UK Ltd’s (HPII’s) efforts to enforce a judgment obtained against Mr Ruhan for £102.26m. The scheme included companies controlled by Dr Smith fabricating litigation against Mr Ruhan leading to a default judgment for £850m, a fabricated settlement agreement and the transfer of assets to entities controlled by Dr Smith. The court found that the transactions were transactions at undervalue under section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (IA 1986), set aside the fraudulent default judgment, struck out the sham proceedings and issued injunctions to protect HPII’s judgment rights against further tortious interference. Written by Justin Perring, barrister, New Square Chambers.

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