The Industry Working Group on Electronic Execution of Documents set up by the Government in response to the 2019 Law Commission Report has published its final report.
Continue ReadingThere has been understandable focus recently on the question of virtual witnessing of documents such as Deeds of Guarantee which require the presence of a witness, a topic dealt with in our last Briefing and to which we will return later in this one. It is important however to remember that the vast majority of Deeds are still executed by wet signatures and in this regard there has been an important recent decision of the High court favourable to financiers.
Continue ReadingIn our autumn 2019 Briefing we welcomed the Law Commission’s final report on Electronic Execution of Documents and set out our views on certain practical matters including the crucial question of whether those documents requiring attestation of the primary signature by a witness necessitated the physical presence of the witness at the point of signature.
Continue ReadingOur summary of the requirements for formalities of contracts likely to be encountered by invoice financiers referred to above also explains the circumstances in which certain contracts executed as deeds require formalities such as in some cases the presence of a witness.
Continue ReadingWe continue to carefully monitor the law reports for case law which illustrates the impact of the pandemic on invoice financiers, both in terms of:
As the era of unusually low interest rates comes to a close, it is worth paying attention to what rate of interest the courts are likely to allow in relation to successful financial claims.
Statue provides that in general terms once judgment has been granted in the English courts, interest of 8% per annum will be awarded on the judgment sum until it is paid.
Continue ReadingFinanciers have been, together with almost all other litigants, subject to what seems to be an ever-increasing spiral of expense in navigating the various fees and charges payable under the court system, a trend which is been in place now for almost 2 decades.
Continue ReadingWe were rather surprised recently to see a commercial law firm attempt to impose Third Party Debt Orders (“TPDOs”) both on an invoice financier and on debtors whose debts had been assigned to it, in each case in favour of a claimant who had secured a court judgment against the assignor.
TPDOs were formerly known as Garnishee orders, and are governed by Rule 72 of the Civil Procedure Rules which provides:
Continue ReadingIn a recent Briefing we commented on the case of Haydock Finance Limited v Starcruiser Bussing Limited [2021] EWHC 622 (Comm) in which we successfully represented a funder in defeating an unmeritorious challenge, backed up by the debtor’s “expert evidence,” to the technical aspects of an asset financier’s securitisation process: see https://www.bermans.co.uk/securitisation-and-the-right-to-sue/
We wondered whether this sort of challenge might spread across to invoice finance, so we were interested to see the Court of Appeal reject a series of technical challenges to the assignment process in the recent judgment in a series of cases reported at [2021] EWCA Civ 1682.
Continue ReadingThe business of law has changed significantly over the last couple of decades, ranging from significant developments in terms of the structure and operation of commercial law firms servicing business clients, to the funding models of “ambulance chasing” litigation covering a wide range of claims from alleged financial mis-selling to simple road traffic accident claims.
It is some time since we examined the topic of invoice finance for lawyers in a Briefing, and we were reminded of its significance in a recent court judgement involving a claim by a funder against a solicitor’s insurer which would have been of great interest to the invoice finance industry had it succeeded.
Continue Reading
| 
