You can read the November 2024 issue of the NCA's SARs reporter booklet by clicking here, together with the recently issued SARs in Action Issue 28 by clicking here. These booklets contain some interesting information about the use to which SARs are put and if you disseminate them to staff you can use that as part of your wider AML training.
Insolvency Compliance Reviews - Compliance On Call
Insolvency Compliance Reviews - Compliance On Call is an established and highly respected provider of UK insolvency compliance services, providing reviews, documents, online technical support, and ad-hoc compliance assistance to suit each practice. Directors Bill Burch and Gareth Limb, together with Jenny Sheen, have over 70 years' combined insolvency experience and have directly assisted hundreds of IPs with their compliance.
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Friday, October 25, 2024
Really Big News
With just under 2 weeks to go until the sold-out R3 SPG Forum, we have some really significant news to share with you. Some of you may already have heard rumours, or even had the heads-up from us, but this is the official announcement:
Gareth Limb is retiring on Friday, 28 March 2025!
Gareth’s large, old, and battered shoes will be filled by Katy Walker, a licensed insolvency practitioner who helped when we were first drafting our now famous document packs. Katy starts with us in January, but will attend SPG and the IPA Personal Insolvency Conference with us. Please come to our stand at SPG, or hunt us down somewhere near the coffee at the IPA conference, and say hello.
This is obviously going to be a huge change that we find very exciting, not least because our average age will plummet and Katy will bring some excellent practical experience from her time as a manager in a large firm and an IP in some of the biggest IVA volume providers. However, we will have more to say about Katy and her potential impact in the early part of next year. This notice is (nearly) all about Gareth.
Gareth first worked in insolvency when the Romans left Britain. He has held nearly every significant job in insolvency regulation and helped shape the profession as it is today. He ran what was IPCU at the Insolvency Service, directly regulating IPs and acting as Regulator of Regulators for the multitude of regulators that existed in the 1990’s. He moved to ACCA and ran their IP monitoring unit for 5 years, during which time he sat on the Joint Insolvency Committee. He joined Bill at Compliance On Call in early 2006 and hasn’t been able to relax since. As well as making sure that Bill didn’t get too enthusiastic, he sat on R3 Council and the SPG committee for ages. He has been a major driving force behind the best document packs in the country and he has given technical advice to so many IPs over the years that it is likely that nearly everyone in the profession has been touched in some way by his influence. Although our clients have benefited directly from interaction with him, Gareth has had a much wider influence on the whole insolvency profession for over 30 years. He has probably earned his retirement 10 times over just for putting up with Bill!
So, SPG will be the start of nearly 5 months celebrating Gareth’s career. If you will be there, or at the IPA Personal Insolvency Conference later in the month, we look forward to meeting up with you. If not, please get in touch to help celebrate anyway. Bill and Jenny, together with Katy in due course, will ensure that Compliance On Call moves from strength to strength and provides the same top drawer service that we have given for nearly 20 years. July 2025 marks 20 years from Bill’s first circular email announcing the arrival of then-sole-trader Compliance On Call. Although we will mark that milestone in due course, we want to spend the next few months celebrating Gareth, so please join us when you get a chance.
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Giving notice to the FCA
- Administration – under section 362A the specific consent in writing of the FCA is required where the company or directors intend to appoint an Administrator in respect of a company or partnership: that is, or has been, an authorised person; is, or has been, an appointed representative; or is carrying on, or has carried on, a regulated activity without authorisation. Such consent from the FCA is a pre-requisite to being able to validly place the company or partnership into Administration. You certainly do not want to be in a position of having to explain in Court or to your regulator why you did not give the required notice.
· CVA – under section 356 the FCA has a right to make representations at Court and creditor meetings in respect of a CVA proposed in respect of a company or partnership that is an authorised person. As a result, the nominee should give the FCA notice of the decision procedure to consider the proposal.
· CVL – under section 365 the FCA has a right to attend any decision procedure relating to the appointment of a liquidator where the company or partnership is an authorised person. As a result, notice of the section 100 decision procedure should be sent to the FCA.
· MVL – since creditors are not involved in the process to appoint a liquidator, where the company or partnership is an authorised person, the only requirement under section 365 is to send notice to the FCA once the company or partnership is in liquidation. That is, however, subject to the overarching comment about discussing and consulting on the proposed liquidation with the FCA. In practice, it is extremely unlikely that a company that is currently authorised will be entering into an MVL.
· IVA – under section 357 the FCA has a right to make representations at Court and creditor meetings in respect of a CVA proposed in respect of a debtor that is an authorised person. As a result, the nominee should give the FCA notice of the decision procedure to consider the proposal.
One other point we want to draw your attention to is the need to report the company, partnership or debtor to the FCA where you find that it is carrying on, or has carried on, a regulated activity without authorisation. While notice of the proposed insolvency procedure has to be given to the FCA in such circumstances where an Administration is proposed by the company or directors, there is no requirement to give notice to the FCA in such a situation where a VA or liquidation is proposed. Instead, there is simply a statutory requirement to notify the FCA post appointment. Having said that, if you become aware that the company, partnership or debtor is carrying on, or has carried on, a regulated activity without authorisation prior to being appointed Supervisor or liquidator, you should discuss the situation with the directors. You will want to raise this with the FCA given the comment in the FCA Guidance about discussing and consulting on the proposed insolvency procedure with the FCA, but obviously you cannot do so pre-appointment without the directors’ consent. If the directors will not give consent, you should consider whether it is appropriate to take the appointment and to what extent any other action might be appropriate given the AML implications of the company having undertaken such activities.
Wednesday, August 07, 2024
NCA - SARs reporter booklet August 2024
You can read the August 2024 issue of the NCA's SARs reporter booklet by clicking here. These booklets contain some interesting information about the use to which SARs are put.
Tuesday, August 06, 2024
A fresh look at electronic filing - time to bite the bullet (if you have not done so already)?
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Estate accounts – interest bearing? Or non-interest bearing?
Like London buses ...
Friday, March 01, 2024
Onerous passwords to open PODs
We have recently heard that there is a growing trend with certain creditors to submit proofs of debt and proxies for decisions, but in a password-protected format, requiring the IP to telephone to obtain the password. That is a pretty silly way to work for a number of reasons, so we have put this article on our Blog and we will refer to it on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter), in the hope that the numpties who thought it was a good idea will reconsider or find an alternative that does not have the potential to increase costs exponentially across the whole insolvency profession.
For a start, it simply is not necessary. The justification being used is “Data Protection” or “GDPR”, but that just does not apply here. The debtor, whether corporate or personal, is insolvent and their details are available on Companies House or the Individual Insolvency Register. The claimant/creditor will generally be a company, or at least the ones that are currently using password protected proofs of debt are companies. Therefore, the only personal data on the form either relates to the insolvency proceedings and is being submitted under a statutory requirement, so is outside the scope of GDPR, or it is the signature and name of the creditor’s agent. If the person signing multiple thousands of proofs of debt, electronically, on behalf of a range of corporate creditor clients, feels unable to consent to their name being shared with insolvency professional firms, then maybe they need to find a new role.
Second, if the individual that is signing the proof of debt form is concerned about their personal data, or the agent wants to attach documentation that may include personal data and is unable to get consent from the individuals at their client that may be affected, there has to be a better way than requiring an IP to phone and ask for it every time. Just this week we heard of a case where the creditor failed to answer after 10 minutes. That may not sound like much in one case, but some of these creditor agents submit thousands of proofs of debt per week. The costs of every IP making thousands of unanswered calls and then following up to finally obtain a password will run into millions of pounds. Given the nature of insolvency, a large amount of that money will not be recovered by the IP and, if it is, the creditors will suffer.
We think that there needs to be some debate across the profession. As yet, I am afraid that we don’t have the answers, but these are some of the questions that we think could be relevant:
1) Is there a real need to password proofs of debt at all?
2) Can an IP treat a proof of debt as undelivered if it is password protected?
3) If the answer to 1) is yes, and the answer to 2) is no, is there a cost-effective alternative?
4) Is there a way that proofs of debt and proxies can be submitted without the sort of data that would necessitate password protection?
One idea that might work would be to have one password for each IP firm, so that the claimant creditor can use it whenever they submit a proof to that firm. Alternatively, could passwords be delivered automatically using a text message or WhatsApp message, so that the IP does not have to phone the creditor?
We are not convinced that passwords are needed at all, but if they are required, someone needs to find a solution that won’t just increase costs. Of course, it would have been nice if they had thought about it first, rather than issuing password protected proofs and assuming that the additional work and cost would be somebody else’s problem.
On that happy note, have a lovely weekend!
MVLs, tax clearance, and arguably unnecessary insurance
We have had a couple of queries recently about HMRC, tax clearance, and as a result of the recent article in Recovery magazine, insurance. The fact that the article was written by someone who works for an insurance broker should tell you a lot. Our view is that this is just a marketing piece, trying to create new demand for an existing product in a sector that has not traditionally used it.
If you have taken sensible steps to confirm that there are no outstanding tax matters, then you should be happy to close the case. Clearance was never worth much on top of that and if you are happy that the directors, members, and accountants have been honest with you, you have checked with the company’s records, and everything seems to be above board, you should have no worries. Even if HMRC subsequently found something, they would restore the company and go after the members, as long as there was no suggestion that you were reckless or negligent. If you were reckless or negligent, I am not sure that tax insurance would cover you in any event.
There will always be exceptions, and you may want to keep details available if the product is still available in the right circumstances. However, by then the furore around clearance may have died down and they may have pulled the product due to lack of interest. I cannot see any way that you could justify using it regularly across your MVL cases, but the cynic in me thinks that it might be useful in the right sort of case. I can imagine a case where you are receiving all the right assurances, but you feel that something isn’t right. You could suggest getting insurance then and see what their reaction is. If they argue against it and show that they have made full disclosure and it isn’t needed, your hunch was probably wrong. If they agree to pay it, they may well be hiding something and you’d be better to walk away, as the insurance probably won’t help much if they are hiding something deliberately.
Because this is a developing area, it is always worth seeking out alternative views, so I have just signed up to Malcolm Niekirk’s coffee break webinar on Monday, 4 March. If you are interested, Malcolm can be contacted through Frettons. I’ve not put a link in this article, as it can generate a bit of spam, but if you google Malcolm or Frettons, you’ll be able to get a link to register.