Legal Update: Recent And Anticipated Statutory And Regulatory Changes

After the tumult of the past few years, with emergency legislation being introduced to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the last few months have felt relatively quiet in terms of new legislation. That said, there have been a number of important government publications in relation to the insolvency industry, and it appears that change is on the horizon.

First, the government published its response to the public consultation on the future of insolvency regulation on 4 August 2023. There will be a sigh of relief from the industry that the government has backed away from proposals to introduce a single regulator in the immediate future, out of recognition of the practical difficulties that would likely throw up. However, the stated intention is to legislate for a statutory power to create such a regulator "should that be needed in the future". Likewise, regulatory objectives will remain unchanged for the moment, though there is an indication that this will