Corporate insolvency bill to ease pressure on businesses during Covid-19

The government has published its new bill designed to relieve the pressure on businesses during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

It’s hoped the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill will ease some of the pressures posed by the threat of reduced trading and allow directors to focus all their efforts on continuing to operate.

The Bill will:

• introduce temporary easements on filing requirements and Annual General Meetings (AGMs)
• introduce new corporate restructuring tools to the insolvency regime to give companies the time they need to maximise their chance of survival
• temporarily suspend parts of insolvency law to support directors during this difficult time.

Temporary easements on filing requirements and AGMs will include more flexibility around when and how AGMs are held, and extensions to deadlines for confirmation statements, accounts, registrations of charges (mortgage) and event-driven filings, such as a change to your company’s directors or people with significant control.

The Bill was introduced on Wednesday 20th May 2020 and will now make its way through Parliament.

Nothing will change until that legislation is introduced.

If you already know that you will not be able to meet your accounts filing deadline, you can apply for a 3 month extension.

Those citing issues around COVID-19 will automatically be granted an extension.

Unless you apply you will not be granted an extension to your accounts filing deadline at this time.  For all other filings, your deadlines will stay the same at this time.

Please contact our Dispute Resolution team on 01228 516666 if you would like advice about company law and insolvency.