Insolvency Team ' Recent Insolvency Case Update

• Published date: 19 August 2021
• Subject Matter: Insolvency/Bankruptcy/Re-structuring, Insolvency/Bankruptcy
• Law Firm: Gatehouse Chambers
• Author: Ms Emily Husain, Oliver Hyams, George Eyre, Mark O'Grady and Katrina Mather

These case summaries first appeared in LexisNexis' Insolvency Case Alerter. They represent some of the more interesting insolvency decisions to have been published recently.

This summary covers:

1.Re PGH Investments Ltd [2021] EWHC 533 (Ch)

2.Re Mederco (Cardiff) Ltd [2021] EWHC 386 (Ch)

3.Lyle v Bedborough [2021] EWHC 220 (Ch)

4.Re TXU Ltd, Insolvency and Companies Court, 2 March 2021

5.Re Port Finance Investment Ltd [2021] EWHC 378 (Ch)

Re PGH Investments Ltd [2021] EWHC 533 (Ch) The judge, Deputy ICC Judge Passfield, heard an application by PGH Investments Ltd to dismiss the winding up petition presented by Mr Ewing ('the Petitioner'), or alternatively to injunct the Petitioner from advertising the petition. The debt, which was the basis for the petition, was the sum of '825,000 said to be owing to the Petitioner under a share purchase and loan assignment agreement entered into in May 2020. PGH Investments Ltd is part of a group of companies ('the Photon group') whose business is the design and manufacture of lighting,

facilities and infrastructure for the purposes of cannabis growing. The Petitioner is an individual who invested in the Photon group by way of share purchases and a substantial loan to other group companies. Pursuant to the share purchase and loan assignment agreement, PGH Investments Ltd intended to purchase some of the Petitioner's shares and the loan by an original deadline of 15 May 2020. In the event, the deadline passed and the purchase price was not paid. PGH Investments Ltd denied that the debt was due and contended that the original agreement had been terminated, with the parties then entering into a new agreement. Effectively, the dispute turned on the construction of the agreement(s).

Held

The judge, Deputy ICC Judge Passfield, granted the application and held that: (i) The application was not premature, as the Petitioner

argued, as a company is entitled to either wait until the listed preliminary hearing to dispute the debt, or to make an application before that where it has reason to do so; (ii) There were genuine and substantial grounds for disputing the alleged debt, as the judge

found PGH Investments Ltd was not liable to pay it on a proper interpretation of the agreement. PGH Investments Ltd also contended that the restriction under Sch 10 to the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 should apply (applicable where a company establishes a prima facie case that it would have been able to pay its debts as they fell due but for its worse financial position caused by the pandemic), as the pandemic had had an indirect

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