This half day online conference will be streamed live, direct to your desktop, tablet or phone, wherever you are. You can participate in the conference live or watch the recorded version whenever you want. In each case you will receive a recording of the complete conference after the event.

Please note: If you book one place at £210,  up to 20 of your colleagues can participate at no extra charge, even if they are viewing it from a different location

Who is The Legal Training Consultancy?

The Legal Training Consultancy is a full-service training consultancy with a large portfolio of in-house courses and trainers. You can find out more here: www.legaltrainingconsultancy.co.uk. We have been responsible for putting together a vast number of law and tax related conferences, webinars, seminars, videos and e-learning modules. Altogether more than 1900.

On the insolvency and employment law fronts we have put together face to face conferences on a wide range of  topics, including Corporate Reconstructions, Insolvency Law Update, Insolvency Law for Company Lawyers, Bankruptcy and IVAs, Insolvency and Employment Law, TUPE, Hiring and Firing, How to Dismiss Fairly, Redundancy, Equal Pay and Employment Tribunals

An Online Conference?

We trialled the format at three full-day online conferences in April to reassure ourselves that, as a concept, it worked, and sitting in front of a screen for much of the day was not too big an ask for delegates. All of them worked wonderfully well and were as far removed from the boring and dull old one-hour webinar as it was possible to be. Comments we have received so far include:

" May I congratulate your imaginative programme and expert speakers, as well as the initiative itself. Superb. Thanks very much"

"Thanks to organisers and presenters. A new type of conference for me and very informative and enjoyable."

"Thanks for organising. Love the format, all the info and updates without the time or expense of travelling"

"Thank you to everyone involved. Very well organised, delivered and informative."

"My unvoiced fear that it would be as dull as webinars used to be when I was in practice was banished fairly quickly"

Who Will the Conference Appeal To?

The tragedy of COVID 19 has presented the business world with its most serious crisis for decades. As we ease out of lockdown, the balancing act to ensure corporate survival continues, though performed on the shifting sands of a continually changing paradigm. For some business entities the problems inflicted by COVID will prove to be terminal and for others business continuance and restructuring will require the expert attention of professional advisers. 

This half day online conference is designed to appeal to insolvency lawyers, employment lawyers, insolvency practitioners and other professionals who are advising clients on these complex issues and need to keep up to date with the latest developments in this very difficult area of work

Speakers

Stephen Allinson, Solicitor, Chairman of the Insolvency Service
David Reade QC, Littleton Chambers
David Pollard, Wilberforce Chambers (ex Freshfields) Author of "Corporate Insolvency: Employment Rights" (Bloomsbury Professional)
Sarah Taylor Butlin, Cloisters & Chair of the Industrial Law Society
James Bickford Smith, Littleton Chambers
Alaric Watson, Hardwicke

Main Topics to be Covered

Insolvency and Employment Law. What All lawyers Need to Know
Collective Redundancy Consultation in the Context of the Coronavirus Pandemic
TUPE and insolvency
Issues for and about directors and senior (management) employees
The Furlough Scheme and the Fate of Employee Contracts in Insolvency
The new Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill - Implications for Employees and Pensions

Timetable

2.00 Chairman's Opening Remarks

Stephen Allinson, Solicitor, Chairman of the Insolvency Service

2.10 Opening Address: Insolvency and Employment Law. What All lawyers Need to Know - COVID and Beyond

Stephen Allinson, Solicitor, Chairman of the Insolvency Service

Setting insolvency in the current business and Covid-19 context.
Administration, Liquidation and Company Voluntary Arrangements - the different consequences in the employment world.
Directors Directors and more Directors - it’s a very hot topic, and remember they could be employees too.
Employees who are owed money: presenting a statutory demand - a worthwhile tactic?
Getting a Redundancy Payments claim right and what that means exactly.
All change with the Insolvency and Corporate Governance Bill- what are the headlines?

2.25 The Furlough Scheme and the Fate of Employee Contracts in Insolvency

David Reade QC, Littleton Chambers

2.55 Collective Redundancy Consultation in the Context of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Declan O'Dempsey, Cloisters 

This highly practical session will consider the issues involved in collective redundancy consultation in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. It will look in particular at the issues surrounding when consultation must commence and how consultation obligations can be met while employees are furloughed or working from home.

3.20 Tea

3.35 TUPE – Administration and Liquidation
James Bickford Smith, Littleton Chambers

Introduction: commercial significance
Summary of overall scheme of TUPE:
“A Relevant Transfer”
Regulation 4 and the effect of a relevant transfer
Regulation 7 and dismissal
The insolvency ‘exception’: Regulation 8
Administration and Regulation 8
Liquidation and Regulation 8
Consultation and overlap with redundancy consultation
Indemnities and arrangements to avoid TUPE taking effect

4.05 Issues For and About Directors and Senior (Management) Employees

Alaric Watson, Hardwicke

Directors’ duties and the onset of insolvency
Shadow directors and duties of other senior employees
Wrongful trading and the proposed changes to the wrongful trading regime to be introduced by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill 2020
A brief aside on s 214A of IA 1986 in the context of LLPs
Other aspects of personal liabilities for directors (and similar) under e.g. s 212 of IA 1986
Disqualification proceedings under CDDA 1986
Potential liabilities in tort following Antuzis v DJ Houghton Catching Services Ltd [2019] EWHC 843 (QB)

4.35 The new Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill - Implications for Employees and Pensions

David Pollard, Wilberforce Chambers (ex Freshfields) Author of "Corporate Insolvency: Employment Rights" (Bloomsbury Professional)

The new moratorium
-how does it work?
-what is a pre-moratorium debt?
-what is a pre-moratorium debt which does not have a payment holiday?
-which employment claims are caught?
How does the super-super-priority for some debts work?
-some debts get a super-super-priority ahead of the super-priority for adopted employee claims in administration
The new restructuring plan (CA 2006, new Part 26A):
-is it an insolvency event for NI/PPF/pension debt purposes?
-will employees or pension trustees be a party to any relevant class meetings?
Prohibition of "ipso facto" clauses
-ipso facto clauses are express terms allowing suppliers to terminate contracts on a formal insolvency
-the bill includes a blanket prohibition on such clauses in a “contract for the supply of goods or services”, subject to exceptions
-does this prohibition apply to employees or pension schemes?

5.05 Questions