The Lord Chancellor, the Right Honourable David Gauke MP, Secretary of State for Justice, has today approved and signed an amended version of the Insolvency Proceedings Practice Direction.
The need for further amendments to the IPD came to light after publication of the amended version in April 2018 when it became evident that further discrepancies between practices in dealing with insolvency work between the South-East and the rest of the country had emerged.
Amendments and updates to the existing Insolvency Proceedings Practice Direction were drafted this past Winter by a committee composed of Mr Justice Norris, Chairman of the Insolvency Rules Committee; Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Briggs, Chief Registrar; District Judge Anson, specialist insolvency district judge in the Preston District Registry; Catherine Addy QC, Deputy Insolvency and Companies Court Judge; Matthew Watson of XXIV Old Buildings; Frances Coulson of Moon Beaver, Member of the Insolvency and Companies Users’ Committee; and Vannina Ettori, Legal Adviser to the Chancellor of the High Court. The final draft was approved and signed by the Chancellor of the High Court, Sir Geoffrey Vos, before being sent to the Lord Chancellor for approval.
The amended Practice Direction updates the previous one by clarifying the position on a few areas of complexity, including the interaction with the Business and Property Courts Practice Direction around the allocation of specialist insolvency work in the South-East in particular, as well as building flexibility for specialist insolvency work to be able to be transferred out to local hearing centres if the specialist judge deems there are the resources and expertise there to deal with it. The updated PD still includes the original updates, including reference to the Insolvency Rules 2016, taking account of recently decided cases and changes in the CPR (in particular with regards to the Business and Property Courts Practice Direction), specifying new arrangements for the distribution of insolvency business across the different levels of the judiciary, and clarifying the routes of appeal in insolvency cases.
The new Practice Direction will shortly be uploaded at the following page: https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/insolvency_pd
A PDF version of the Practice Direction is available below:
