CORPORATE AND PERSONAL INSOLVENCY LAW Second Edition
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CORPORATE AND PERSONAL INSOLVENCY LAW Second Edition
Fiona Tolmie School of Law, Kingston University
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Second edition first published in Great Britain 2003 by Cavendish Publishing Limited, The Glass House, Wharton Street, London WC1X 9PX, United Kingdom Telephone: + 44 (0)20 7278 8000 Facsimile: + 44 (0)20 7278 8080 Email:
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© Tolmie, Fiona First edition Second edition
2003 1998 2003
The first edition of this book was first published by Sweet & Maxwell Ltd as Introduction to Corporate and Personal Insolvency Law. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of Cavendish Publishing Limited, or as expressly permitted by law, or under the terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organisation. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Cavendish Publishing Limited, at the address above. You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Tolmie, Fiona M Corporate and personal insolvency law – 2nd ed 1 Bankruptcy – England 2 Bankruptcy – Wales I Title II Introduction to individual and corporate insolvency law 346.4'2'078 Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available ISBN 1-85941-772-8 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Printed and bound in Great Britain
Dedicated to Andrew, Isabel and Tom
PREFACE This is the second edition of a work first published in 1998; such has been the pace of change in the last five years that many portions of it have had to be almost entirely rewritten. There have been, or are about to be, major developments affecting most sections of this book. The changes have been caused both by statute (including the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999, the Insolvency Act 2000, the European Council Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings 2000, the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000 and the Enterprise Act 2002) and as a result of the considerable volume of case law (particularly Re Brumark). As a consequence, changes have been made or are planned to company administration orders, voluntary arrangements and bankruptcy; administrative receivership is on its way to being abolished. Changes have also been made both to the assets which are available to creditors in a bankruptcy and to the order of distribution in both bankruptcy and liquidation. There have been major developments in the areas of disqualification of directors, funding of litigation by officeholders and cross-border insolvency within Europe. The impact of the human rights legislation has been felt in a number of areas of insolvency law. Th