The recent decision in CDI Realisations Limited is a short one, but it sits against a much longer-running debate about creditor consent for administration extensions and, in particular, when creditor status should be assessed for these purposes.
While the facts of CDI are relatively straightforward, the decision is a useful addition to the growing body of authority and guidance that points towards a pragmatic, interest-based approach to consent under Schedule B1.
When a business runs into into financial difficulties and proposes a Company Voluntary Arrangement (“CVA”), landlords, insolvency practitioners and local authorities can disagree about who should pick up the bill for business rates on empty leasehold premises – the landlord, or the company in CVA?
When a company enters administration, the administrators must set out proposals explaining how they intend to achieve the purpose of the administration, but what happens when creditors refuse to approve those proposals? A recent decision in Re PPE Medpro Limited (in Administration) [2025] EWHC 3449 (Ch) (“PPE Medpro”) provides important clarification.
The Statutory Framework
Paragraph 49(1) of Schedule B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986 (the “IA86”) requires an administrator to produce proposals explaining how the relevant statutory purpose of the administration is to be achieved. Those proposals must be put to creditors for approval.
Where creditors fail to approve the proposals or a revision of the proposals, paragraph 55 of Schedule B1 to the IA86 provides that, upon the administrator reporting the outcome to the court, the court may:
Are administrators required to apply for court directions where a proposal is rejected?
In a world where it is much more common to send someone a text, a WhatsApp message, email or other electronic communication, than type a letter or put pen to paper, the Court does find itself now and again considering how the digital ways of communicating interact with laws that were introduced way before the concept of sending someone an instant message were even contemplated.
Although the case of Reid-Roberts v Mei-Lin [2026] EWHC 49 (Ch) considered WhatsApp messages in the context of personal insolvency, the decision is of wider interest to insolvency practitioners (IPs) as a reminder that more casual ways of communicating could have legal consequences – both for them and when considering the asset position on an insolvency.
Following our previous blog Revolution Bars: When is a meeting really a meeting?” Mr Justice Hildyard has, in Re Argo Blockchain Plc[1], affirmed the position that a creditor can only approve a restructuring plan (“RP”) if at least 75% in value of a class of creditors, present and voting either in person or by proxy at the meeting, vote in favour. A single chairman holding proxies for two or more creditors does not constitute a valid meeting for the purpose of approving a RP and, irrespective of the proxy vote, the class will be treated as dissenting.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT)[1] upheld an employment tribunal’s decision that the claimant, Mr Chaudhry, could not recover a basic award for unfair dismissal following their employer’s insolvency unless an employment tribunal had determined the claim and made an award.
Why is this relevant to administrators? Because for an employee to bring a claim the administrator must give permission for the employee to bring or continue such a claim given the existence of the moratorium. The question this decision helps clarify, is whether administrators should do as a matter of course. It also helps clarify, that for employees, they need the employment tribunal to determine a claim for unfair dismissal in order to make any recoveries following the employer company entering administration.
At the beginning of 2025 we shared our predictions on what we expected to see in the R&I market over the course of the year. How did we do?
Despite meeting statutory jurisdictional requirements under Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006, the High Court declined to exercise its discretion in favour of sanctioning Waldorf Production UK Plc’s restructuring plan in August 2025due to concerns about fair allocation of value and lack of meaningful engagement with unsecured creditors.
Waldorf then sought and was granted permission to “leapfrog” its appeal directly to the Supreme Court. The progress of this appeal was being closely tracked by industry professionals as it offered the possibility of Supreme Court clarification around how the issue of fairness should be approached. However, restructuring professionals are destined for disappointment on this front, with news now out that Waldorf has withdrawn its appeal. This means that the Court of Appeal’s trilogy of cases—Adler, Petrofac, and Thames Water—now stand as the definitive authority on fairness in restructuring plans.
So how do plan companies approach the question of fairness and the fair allocation of the benefits generated by the plan? The principles that apply are these:
On December 1, 2025, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Honorable Denise Cote) entered an opinion and order that struck third-party releases and a related injunction in a confirmed Chapter 11 Plan (the “Plan”) for the In re Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes S.A., et al. bankruptcy cases (Case No. 24-10118, Bankr. S.D.N.Y.).
On insolvency, the pari passu principle applies, meaning unsecured creditors rank equally in the distribution of available assets. That principle helps explain why a creditor who has obtained a judgment debt but has not completed enforcement (for instance by obtaining a final charging order) will usually be barred from doing so once insolvency intervenes. A charging order remains interim only and cannot “jump the queue.” Yet in Stacks Living, the Court did precisely that. It made an interim charging order final notwithstanding intervening bankruptcy under Insolvency Act 1986 (“IA 1986”).
This blog considers why the creditor was effectively allowed to bypass the pari passu principle.
Despite being a personal insolvency case, the reasoning will also be relevant to liquidations given that the statutory provisions are essentially the same.
