Key Takeaways
The use of the UK restructuring plan (
Plan ) introduced last summer has been gathering pace with a handful of recent judgments seeing it used to implement cross-border restructurings instead of UK schemes of arrangement (
Schemes ).
In a significant recent judgment in respect of a Plan proposed by Gategroup
1, the High Court decided that Plans are insolvency proceedings falling outside the scope of the Lugano Convention.
2
Classifying Plans as insolvency proceedings is likely to complicate their use in Europe, and it is clear that, based on this decision, the Lugano Convention will not provide a post-Brexit route for Plans to be recognised in Europe.