Consider a common situation: a struggling company running out of funds, pleading with its bank for more cash, selling surplus assets to repay debt and desperately trying to restructure itself to avoid administration. The last thing it needs is extra cost, delays and uncertainty -and yet that is what the Pensions Regulator’s proposed pensions guidelines may cause.
In September, the Regulator issued a consultation document for its revised clearance guidance, which prompted PricewaterhouseCoopers to run a seminar for pensions and restructuring lawyers to talk through the changes and canvass opinion on the proposed guidance. At this seminar, 35% of the pensions lawyers and 46% of restructuring lawyers said they perceived the Regulator’s powers as a threat to their clients, but the majority of the restructuring lawyers present had not read the proposed guidance. So why is this guidance so important?
