What further proposals has the Government made in relation to Public Companies?
It has also been proposed in the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill that public companies who were due to file their accounts in the period from 26 March 2020 to 30 September 2020 will have until the earlier of the 30 September 2020 and the date which is 12 months after the end of their relevant accounting period to do this.
This is separate from the pre-existing scheme, announced on 25 March 2020, whereby companies can apply to Companies House for a 3 month extension for filing their accounts.
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The current guidance issued by Mr Justice Hayden confirms that remote hearings may be conducted using the following facilities and that this will be the default position until further direction:
- By way of an email exchange between the court and the parties;
- By way of telephone using conference calling facilities;
- By way of the court’s video-link system, if available;
- The use of the Skype for Business App installed on judicial laptops;
- Any other appropriate means of remote communication, for example BT MeetMe, Zoom or FaceTime.
A number of our clients and networks raised issues in the early stages of the Scheme around the requirement for personal guarantees to access finance under the Scheme. The Scheme has now been updated so that:
- For facilities under £250,000, personal guarantees cannot be taken to support lending under the Scheme.
- For facilities above £250,000, personal guarantees may still be required by a lender but the amount which can be recovered under these guarantees is capped at a maximum of 20% of the outstanding balance of the CBILS facility after taking into account any other recoveries from business assets.
It is envisaged that employees of organisations falling into the first two categories set out above and won’t be eligible for the job retention scheme in relation to the majority of their employees. It is envisaged that NHS Trusts for example are going to require their staff to be working at full capacity where possible. However, the guidance doesn’t definitely exclude public sector organisations from furloughing employees and notably the government expects such organisations to use public money to continue to pay staff and not furlough them, rather than say requires. In reality, it is difficult to see how such an organisation will be able to rely on the scheme, but the guidance doesn’t completely rule it out.
No. This bill relates to corporate insolvencies only. Should you require any advice as to personal insolvency situations, please contact our team.
The Chief Coroner supports the position, communicated by NHS England and the Chief Medical Officer that Covid-19 is an acceptable direct or underlying cause of death for the purposes of completing the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) and is considered a naturally occurring disease. This cause of death alone is not a reason to refer a death to a coroner under CJA 2009.
If the cause of death is believed to be due to confirmed Covid-19 infection, there is unlikely to be any need for a post mortem to be conducted and the MCCD should be issued, and guidance is given on how this is delivered to the Registrar in the event of the next of kin/informant being in self-isolation.
In a hospital setting the MCCD process should be straightforward because of diagnosis and treatment in life. This may be more complex in a community setting. The Coronavirus Act 2020 however expanded the window for last medical review from 14 to 28 days. Outside of this, the death will need to be reported to the coroner.
Although Covid-19 is a naturally occurring disease, there may be additional factors around the death which mean it should be reported to the coroner; for example, the cause of death is unclear, or where there are other relevant factors. Guidance is given to coroners on how to manage such reported deaths, particularly where post mortem examinations may not be readily availability.