This page contains details of our latest news and events. This is our current calendar of events for 2022 (subject to change):
LIVERPOOL BUSINESS & PROPERTY COURT FORUM – Programme of events for 2024
The full calendar of events for 2024 is being planned and will be confirmed in the coming weeks.
2024 Calendar
18th April 2024 – ‘Recent Changes to Landlord and Tenant Law in Wales: A comparison with the existing regime in England’. Alex Williams and Harry East (Oriel Chambers) (Remote session). Sign up details to follow shortly.
25th June 2024 – ‘Company Law Reforms and the Director Information Hub’ – Save the date! With Dr. John Tribe (University of Liverpool), Jag Saroe (Insolvency Service), Justin Dione (Insolvency Service) and Graham Sellers (Exchange Chambers). Venue: Hybrid: TBC
18th July 2024 – Liverpool Business and Property Court Forum (LBPCF) – Summer drinks with HHJ Cadwallader and Mr Justice Fancourt.
8th October 2024 – “Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependents) Act 1975 and contentious probate update” David Green and Jac Armstrong (Atlantic Chambers). Venue: Hybrid TBC.
27th November 2024 – Liverpool Business and Property Court Form – Annual Social Event, jointly hosted with His Honour Judge Cadwallader and Mr Justice Fancourt, Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster – Venue: Athenaeum, Liverpool.
2025 Calendar
February – TBC. Chaired by HHJ Cadwallader.
March – – Date and Venue TBC – Dr. John Wood (Lancaster University) & Dr. John Tribe (university of Liverpool) – “Countering liquidation through the lens of a restructuring culture.”
The corporate insolvency statistics for the last forty years show that liquidation is by far the most likely outcome for a company that is insolvent in England and Wales. The corporate rescue procedures, including Company Voluntary Arrangements, schemes of arrangement, and administration, are seldom used. Indeed, their frequency is so low that they do not merit separate designation in the official statistics graphical release. Rescue procedures are simply “other insolvencies” to liquidation’s massive dominance.
Why then is liquidation so dominant?
This paper answers this question by examining both practical and theoretical considerations. Insolvency Practitioner (IP) behaviour is examined through the lens of, inter alia, path dependency and education.
Wider systemic and market considerations including creative destruction are also examined where it is argued that the insolvency system itself is geared towards liquidation. Timeliness is also examined. It is argued that procedure use is deployed far too late when limited value is left in the distressed company.
Ultimately, it is argued that liquidation dominates because we have a recycling culture in English and Welsh corporate insolvency law that is facilitated by liquidation as a process of augmentation, distribution, and asset movement.
While a recycling culture partially achieves some of the policy objectives that rescue proponents advocate, they do not promote the rescue of a company as a going concern.
To that end, we are faced with a choice. We could maintain a recycling culture through liquidation, or we could encourage the development of a restructuring culture that promotes early engagement with rescue and restructuring procedures. This could in part be achieved through greater educational programmes for directors as with the government’s new Director Information Hub, or the creation of new incentives to involve professional advisors when financial distress is detected.
Chaired by HHJ Cadwallader
April – TBC – Chaired by HHJ Cadwallader
May – TBC – Chaired by HHJ Cadwallader
June – TBC – Chaired by HHJ Cadwallader
July – Liverpool Business and Property Court Forum (LBPCF) – Summer drinks with HHJ Cadwallader and Mr Justice Fancourt.
August – Summer Break – no event scheduled.
September – TBC – Chaired by HHJ Cadwallader
October – Date & Venue TBC – Dr. John Tribe (University of Liverpool) – “Pride & Posterity: An “Afterlives” reappraisal of the Earl of Birkenhead’s role in the passage of the Law of Property Act 1925”
This paper critically examines FE Smith’s (the Earl of Birkenhead) contribution to the passage of the Law of Property Act 1925. It is argued that Birkenhead was actuated by a desire to remove uncertainty and to generally reform property law, but also by a desire to ensure that his legal legacy would be assured by his involvement with the enactment of the far reaching statute. This legislative activity would make up for Birkenhead’s otherwise relatively unremarkable career as Lord Chancellor and his suspicion of passing spectre like into legal obscurity.
Using Cave’s “Anticipated Afterlives” methodology this paper re-examines Birkenhead’s life and law reform activity. The paper argues that a “posterity motivation” analysis better informs our understanding of property law, private law reform, and FE Smith’s pre-occupation with posterity.
Chaired by HHJ Cadwallader
November – Date and Venue TBC – Liverpool Business and Property Court Form – Annual Winter Social Event, jointly hosted with His Honour Judge Cadwallader and Mr Justice Fancourt, Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster – Venue: TBC.
NEXT EVENT
8th October 2024 – “Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependents) Act 1975 and contentious probate update”
With David Green and Jac Armstrong (Atlantic Chambers).
Venue: Hybrid
PAST EVENTS
MARCH 2024
UK Supreme Court Justice Lord Burrows will deliver a keynote lecture as part of the anniversary celebrations of 130 years of Law at the University of Liverpool.
Title of Lecture: ‘Precedent and Overruling in the UK Supreme Court’
Speaker: Lord Burrows – Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
Date: Monday 18th March 2024
Time: 5.30 – 6.30pm (followed by drinks a reception in the Victoria Gallery & Museum atrium)
Venue: Leggate Lecture Theatre, Victoria Gallery & Museum, University of Liverpool
Booking: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/school-of-law-and-social-justice-university-of-liverpool/t-qjxopkp
Biography
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lord Burrows
Andrew Stephen Burrows became a Justice of the Supreme Court in June 2020.
He was educated at Prescot Grammar School, Knowsley, Merseyside and Brasenose College, Oxford. He has been a barrister at Fountain Court Chambers since 1989.
He was appointed QC (hon) in 2003 and is an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple. He has been sitting as a part-time judge for over 20 years, first as a Recorder and then as a Deputy High Court Judge.
He was a Law Commissioner for England and Wales (1994-1999) and the President of the Society of Legal Scholars (2015-16). He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2007 and has written many books and articles especially on contract, tort, unjust enrichment, and statute law.
He was formerly Professor of the Law of England at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College.
