Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

The Bill does not propose a moratorium on claims for companies subject to insolvency procedures. Its purpose is to facilitate restructuring for distressed companies that can be rescued and continue trading for the benefit of all stakeholders, including creditors and employees. I fear that the capital market arrangement exclusion, in prohibiting a large number of companies from benefiting from the moratorium in this Bill, is not conducive to that end when reforms to facilitate restructuring and save businesses and jobs have never been more important. Surely the Government must ensure that the moratorium in the Bill is available in practice as well as on paper. It is certainly not with the capital market arrangement exclusion, as far as medium and large companies are concerned. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider and come back at Report with government amendments addressing this problem.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 6, but I associate myself with the comments of my noble friends Lady Kramer, Lady Bowles and Lord Palmer. Amendment 6 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, to which I have added my name, concerns the threshold that a monitor must believe has been met for a moratorium to be suitable for a company.

Changing “would” to “could” seems on paper to be very small change to such a significant piece of legislation. However, given the relatively short timeframe within which the monitor must satisfy themselves that this criterion has been met, not to mention the difficulties in gathering all the relevant facts regarding the company’s trading, lending and general financial arrangements, it is likely that the cost of doing so will be significant. Under the current threshold these costs could be so high as to prevent the moratorium being used, which is obviously the opposite of what we all want to achieve. This slightly less definitive word could make a significant difference on a practical, working basis. I encourage the Minister to consider seriously this small but significant change.