In Practice

This In Practice article considers different mechanisms for consumer redress including schemes of arrangement, Financial Conduct Authority redress schemes and redress via the courts and the extent to which they achieve finality for a corporate party. The article also considers the impact of mass compensation events on investors where the loan or other financial product, the subject of the redress scheme, has been securitised. At the time of publication, the Supreme Court’s judgment in Johnson v FirstRand Bank Ltd  was not yet handed down and this article therefore does not consider the impact of that decision.

The UK and US implemented cross-border structuring procedures to facilitate, among other things, international comity and the effective structuring and reorganisation of distressed entities with international operations. A key component of any such international structuring is recognition of the actions undertaken in the applicable jurisdiction (eg the UK) in other relevant jurisdictions (eg the US). Nonconsensual third-party releases are an important tool in a practitioners' toolbox to facilitate an effective restructuring. Recently, case law in the US both: 

(i) invalidated nonconsensual releases in the context of Ch 11 proceedings in the US; and
(ii) upheld the continued legality of nonconsensual third-party releases in cross-border matters under Ch 15 of the US Bankruptcy Code (which chapter governs US recognition of non-US restructuring proceedings).
 

In light of those developments, this In Practice article provides an overview of fundamental concepts underlying nonconsensual third-party releases and explores their continued utility as an available mechanism to facilitate UK-US restructurings. 

This In Practice article highlights the significance of the UK’s accession to the 2019 Hague Convention and considers the relevance to English legal opinions.

In this In Practice article, the authors set out ten key points of difference between specialty finance and securitised warehouse structures.

Singapore's economy has rebounded strongly from the pandemic, driven by robust domestic and external demand amid the global recovery. However, the city-state's equities market has lagged behind its global peers in terms of listings, liquidity, and investor interest.
To enhance the competitiveness of Singapore’s capital market, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) launched a comprehensive revitalisation plan in 2024, forming the Equities Market Review Group to strengthen the equities market. This strategy combines both demand-side and supply-side incentives and moves towards regulatory streamlining, thereby aiming to attract quality issuers and investors while improving capital-raising prospects for issuers and fund managers. This In Practice article considers the key initiatives. 

As discussed at length in our article, ‘Security over e-money and deposits with deposit aggregators: a new approach is required’ (2022) 10 JIBFL 682, e-money accounts have different features to traditional bank accounts and cash at bank. As such, the approach to taking security over e-money accounts must be different. This article considers one key difference – it is not possible to block e-money accounts as: (i) Electronic Money Institutions are under a statutory obligation to allow their customers to redeem their e-money at any time (regs 39 and 40 of the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 (EMRs)); and (ii) the balance must be capable of being used for payment transactions (reg 2 EMRs).

At first glance, proposed reforms to the EU’s securitisation reporting regime such as a new template for private securitisations seem to offer a welcome simplification. However, under closer scrutiny, recommendations by the European Supervisory Authorities and the Commission’s proposed changes are more likely to offer administrative headaches than benefits. In this In Practice article, the authors look at what sell-side entities would need to consider if the reforms were to go ahead as proposed.

This In Practice article explores how and why banks may rely on guarantees granted to agents and other intermediaries for regulatory capital purposes, even though such arrangements might seem to be at odds with the direct protection requirement under the Capital Requirements Regulations.The article is loosely based on Chapter 8 of Credit Risk Mitigation and Synthetic Securitization: Law and Regulation , by Timothy Cleary and Charles H R Morris (Oxford, 2025).¹

This In Practice article focuses on lender considerations when lending to a group with significant minority shareholdings, focusing on examples with borrowers in the professional services sector.

In unwelcome news for litigation funders, the Competition Appeal Tribunal has ruled that a contested £200m settlement of an “opt-out” class action, once estimated to be worth £14bn, is just and reasonable.