A CVA (Company Voluntary Arrangement) is an agreement that allows an insolvent company to survive with the consent of 75% of unsecured creditors to reschedule and possibly write down debt to a level that is affordable.
As such it can be a useful vehicle for both creditors and the business concerned, offering the creditors the chance of a better return on their money than they would perhaps expect from the company being wound up.
A CVA essentially involves a proposal to creditors by the company directors, sponsorship of the proposal by an Insolvency Practitioner (IP) as Nominee, and upon approval monitoring by an IP as Supervisor. The preparation of the proposal is often done by or at least with the assistance of an Adviser who has experience of CVAs.
There are a number of issues with IPs drafting CVA proposals which may be the reason that so many fail, approximately 70% I am given to understand. One major issue is the lack of fundamental change to effect a turnaround of the company. This is understandable given that IPs can rarely justify their hourly rate approach to charging for sorting out the causal factors that contributed to the insolvency.
Another issue is the inherent conflict of interests between the Adviser who acts on behalf of the company, and the Supervisor who represents creditors. The Adviser drafts the terms which include a proposed basis for the Supervisor’s fees and also whether the Supervisor benefits from a failure of the CVA. I have seen examples of uncapped Supervisors’ fees being far greater than estimated, leaving insufficient funds to pay a fixed percentage dividend to creditors such that the CVA failed, despite the contributions being paid into the CVA as projected in the proposal as drafted by the same IP as Adviser.
The above reasons alone are sufficient to challenge the revised proposals to Statement of Insolvency Practice 3 as set out in SIP 3.2.
I would suggest that an IP can be either an Adviser or Supervisor, but never both for the same company.
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