Question for the other IPs

[pbeck]

I have an enquirer who has lived in France for over 3 years, all his debts are UK-based and he works over there for the BBC (I'm not sure whether on the payroll or as a contractor).

He wanted to make himself bankrupt but at the High Court yesterday Registrar Simmonds refused his petition on the grounds that his "Centre of main interests" was outside the UK. After that he came to me and asked about an IVA. I said that if the Court refused his bankruptcy petition then it had already ruled on the location of his centre of main interests and therefore an IVA would probably not work either, but I would check with the other IPs on this forum to see if they had ahd any luck.

Melanie, I think you said in a previous topic that you had tried some applications in the High Court for IVAs for overseas debtors. Do you, or any of the other IPs on this forum, have some case law on this point ?

[MelanieGiles]

Philip - I would definately present that in the High Court, and have recently done a similar case for a chap who lives in Spain. If the debts are all in the UK, then it ought to be easy to argue "Centre of Main Interests" .

Have a look at Shireson v Vlieland-Boddy as a case which determines the Centre of Main Interests. It might be helpful.

[pbeck]

Thanks for that, Melanie.

I have read the headnote of the Court of Appeal decision in Sheirson Vlieland-Boddy, didn't read the whole thing as in BPIR it comes to 40 pages.

This seems to suggest that you can only open territorial proceedings where the centre of main interests is in another EU state, thus no foreign assets could be dealt with in this manner, but what about the debtor's earnings abroad, are those regarded as outside the scope of the territorial proceedings ?

This article suggests that you can not apply for an IVA as secondary/territorial proceedings as a "winding-up" process is required http://www.sghlaw.com/insolvency/articl ... ation.html .

Did you actually get an interim order for your client or just filed the papers and got it through on the nod ?

[MelanieGiles]

Did not bother with Interim Order - just lodged application at High Court, but my client has also lived in the UK within the last three years and so met the requirements of S265 in any case.

I have also discussed this with my lawyer this morning, and he is going to look into COMI for me again - but we remain happy that it the debts are in the jurisdiction then grounds for bankrutpcy apply.

I suspect that we will see more and more of this, as ex-pats look to deal with their financial difficulties where is more attractive perhaps to avail of a shorter discharge period than would be available in Europe.