Updates to the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016

In summary, the Amended Rules now provide for the following:

• Amending the definition of “Judge” to omit the obsolete term “Registrar”, which until 2018 was used to refer to Judges who heard insolvency matters.
• Remove references to the use of fax as a means of delivering documents to the Court and the Insolvency Service due to wider use of electronic means of communication, including email and the High Court’s electronic filing system. In practice, this is unlikely to have a significant impact as the use of fax machines is very rare now. 
• Remove the requirement to deliver more than one copy of a document that is delivered electronically to the court or by the court to a party. For example, it was formerly the case that at least 3 copies were required to be filed for a Notice of Appointment of Administrators otherwise this could be classed as a procedural defect (though such a defect could be remedied).  The requirement to provide at least 3 copies did not make sense due to the High Court’s electronic filing system and so this is a useful clarification to the Rules which reflects modern working practices.      
• Clarifies the rules about the date and time where an administrator is appointed out of Court. Notwithstanding this, the date and time of an administrator being appointed remains significant in establishing when the statutory moratorium takes effect and so records still need to be kept to show when the administrator was appointed. 
• That where a bankruptcy is based on an individual making an application to declare themselves bankrupt, the trustee’s notice on completion of the bankruptcy should be delivered to the Official Receiver (rather than filed at Court).
• That where a creditor’s bankruptcy petition is allocated to the London Insolvency District, the financial threshold for presenting the petition in the High Court (rather than the County Court) is increased from £50,000 to £500,000. Please note, this does not apply to petitions presented prior to 22 June 2026: the £50,000 threshold will continue to apply. 
• Require an insolvency officeholder to make a request to any existing creditor committee for approval to exceed any fees estimate (except where the Court fixed the basis). If there is no creditor committee, the request should be made to the creditors or class of creditors which fixed the basis. Previously, where the creditors or a class of creditors fixed the basis, the requirement was to make a request for approval to those creditors even where a committee was subsequently formed.