Dispute at Pillings

[Alan de Enfield]

As it happens the NAA agreement does require payment in advance - it also needs a company with b**ls to actually collect the money and not let the debt build up.

[RLWP]

Whilst we would all wish that to be the case unfortunately it would be "neither right nor proper".

 

If you bought a car, and were told that in addition to the purchase price of the car you were resonsible for (say) £10,000 of unpaid finance on the car I'm sure you would say "its only right and proper I pay the previous guys debts" ..........

 

Need I go on ?

If there's a log book loan on the car, that's exactly what happens.

 

Richard

[Phantasm]

As of today I know of four boats making arrangements to leave PLM for new moorings

Agreed. I met with friends at the marina today, but decided against using the café.

 

We went elsewhere and chatted and I was told that there are a fair few "die-hards" but a number of moorers have made enquiries at other marinas and 3 have made arrangements to leave at the end of the month. We're not sure if the management have been told so I'm not inclined to put further information just in case. I did ask one why they're not prepared to wait and see what happens, because come April there should be more marinas spaces available as boats are taken out for the summer, and was told that they like the marina but are not willing to support PL or be held to ransom by his actions. Their words not mine.

 

(Actually the rest of their words were pretty robust and cannot be repeated here)

Edited March 9, 2014 by Phantasm

[Paul G2]

Just out of interest. Who is it that will decide what is 'unreasonable'? Is it a defined criteria set out in a NAA contract or is it something subjective, open to legal interpretation?

If CRT decided it was reasonable in the circumstances to reinstate the 30 online moorings, rather than grant a new NAA and risk further default, who would have the authority to deem that was 'unreasonable'?

 

 

 

Many a legal career has been spent in pursuit of the definition of "reasonable". Quite often one of the most difficult aspects of litigation is deciding what is "reasonable, and what is not..

 

Just remember that this money owing which was paid by moorers has been subsidised by licence payers money .

It would only be right and proper that whosoever wants the blockage removing must first clear the debt and sign a new NAA agreement with payments yearly in advance .

The same payments in advance to be applied to all new agreements .

 

Whilst CRT should certainly require stringent financial guarantees from Steadman/Lillie going forward, they cannot recover the £185K, even if Steadman/Lillie wanted to pay them.

 

The £185K is a debt that is being/has been adjudicated by a bankruptcy/liquidation proceeding. If Steadman walked into CRT today and handed them a check for £185K and said, "Here's your NAA money.", CRT would have to turn the money over to the IP and the IP would distribute it among all the unsecured creditors in whatever order of preference they might have.

 

Perhaps, after the liquidation is completely over and done with Steadman/Lillie might be able to pay selective creditors. However, as long as the IP is involved, Steadman/Lillie can't go around paying one creditor in favor of another. (Not that they would, but that's a different story.) CRT has no right/ability to include the £185K in any negotiations over a future NAA because that debt no longer exists.

[furnessvale]

 

The company that owe the £185000 is no more.

 

Its like if you bought your new TV from Comet, it developed a fault so you took it back - in the meantime Comet has gone bust and Currys have moved into the shop.

Same shop - same products - different owner

You will not get any satisfaction from Currys

Just one slight difference with your analogy. I may have a duff telly but I also have something that Currys desperately need for their business to succeed.

 

It's called an NAA. Rather like holding the only set of keys to Currys new front door.

 

In the big scheme of things, if I hold my nerve, Currys will repair my telly as a goodwill gesture, or at the least, offer me VERY advantageous terms on a new one.

 

George ex nb Alton retired

Edited March 9, 2014 by furnessvale

[furnessvale]

 

Perhaps, after the liquidation is completely over and done with Steadman/Lillie might be able to pay selective creditors. However, as long as the IP is involved, Steadman/Lillie can't go around paying one creditor in favor of another. (Not that they would, but that's a different story.) CRT has no right/ability to include the £185K in any negotiations over a future NAA because that debt no longer exists.

 

Fair enough, but in common with every other creditor who has been stung, they have every right in ensuring they don't get stung again and if this means screwing the "new" company to the wall, fair enough again.

 

George ex nb Alton retired

[Peter X]

 

Agreed, and it seems likely to pan out this way because there is no money to pay the IP to investigate properly.

 

I keep asking how the IP will be funded to carry out the investigations you mention but no-one has a credible answer. So I conclude he won't be carrying out any meaningful investigation and it will all be wrapped up and swept under the carpet with the maximum of haste.

 

 

MtB

 

Mike, I agree that the various attempts at answers you've had from myself and others have been unsatisfactory. So I've had a bit of a dig and the best I can find is this article in which the IP's trade association attempts to explain why they're worth paying lots of money for what they do:

https://www.r3.org.uk/media/documents/policy/policy_papers/corporate_insolvency/R3_IPs_Fees_Paper_D3_.pdf

This document doesn't fully answer your question, but my reading of it is that in the Pillings Lock case Mr Steadman will have to pay the bill as the secured creditor. It also asserts that sometimes an IP doesn't get paid.

 

I just looked up the documentation from my last encounter with an IP in 2012, when my limited company was the second biggest (by a very long distance!) unsecured creditor of a software company which went into Creditor's Voluntary Liquidation. There was no secured creditor, and the biggest creditor was a very rich man who'd invested a few million into the business and lost it all. I got paid because a phoenix company wanted the database and the people who understood it, and I think they must have paid all the IP's fees. Just as well considering that the IP was PriceWaterhouseCoopers and their lowest hourly rate, for "Secretarial/other support staff", was £112 per hour. Yet when I turned up to the creditor's meeting at their extremely flashy office in London, the receptionist had great difficulty in directing me to the correct meeting room despite the fact that I had my invitation letter! Not a £112 per hour performance. The result was that several seriously expensive people were twiddling their thumbs for nearly 30 minutes before I appeared, because no other creditor was present and they told me by law such a meeting cannot start until either one turns up or some period of time has elapsed. Of course this was pwc in London, a different world, and Mr Nelson and his staff will come rather cheaper.

 

Mr Nelson does indeed have a duty to examine the conduct of Paul Lillie and can opt to either go to court himself or pass his findings to the Insolvency Service (a government body) who may then choose to prosecute PL. See:

https://www.gov.uk/company-director-disqualification

[FadeToScarlet]

I emailed Phil Spencer about how much Pilings actually paid. He was quite cagey about actual amounts, but did confirm that CRT received a "significant amount" under what was required, with the remainder owing being the £161k.

[Peter X]

 

 

 

Many a legal career has been spent in pursuit of the definition of "reasonable". Quite often one of the most difficult aspects of litigation is deciding what is "reasonable, and what is not..

 

 

Whilst CRT should certainly require stringent financial guarantees from Steadman/Lillie going forward, they cannot recover the £185K, even if Steadman/Lillie wanted to pay them.

 

The £185K is a debt that is being/has been adjudicated by a bankruptcy/liquidation proceeding. If Steadman walked into CRT today and handed them a check for £185K and said, "Here's your NAA money.", CRT would have to turn the money over to the IP and the IP would distribute it among all the unsecured creditors in whatever order of preference they might have.

 

Perhaps, after the liquidation is completely over and done with Steadman/Lillie might be able to pay selective creditors. However, as long as the IP is involved, Steadman/Lillie can't go around paying one creditor in favor of another. (Not that they would, but that's a different story.) CRT has no right/ability to include the £185K in any negotiations over a future NAA because that debt no longer exists.

 

 

Certainly the debt will no longer exist when the IP finishes his work, but as I discussed in posts #3761 and #3871, that should not prevent CRT from holding No. 750 Leicester Ltd to ransom using their powers under the Transport Act 1962. I repeat my question from the latter post, which I don't think you or anyone else has answered since:

[adding on £30,00 for Apr-Dec 2013] under what law could that new owner compel CRT to grant a new NAA without payment of the £215,000?

[mayalld]

Well a new NAA cannot be "unreasonably" witheld

Earlier in the discussion, I believed this to be the case (a belief that PL appears to be advancing).

 

As the weeks have passed, I am now sure that this is not the case.

 

CRT cannot unreasonably refuse to transfer a NAA from one operator to another, but once the NAA lapses, they are under no obligation whatsoever to issue another.

[Paul G2]

 

Certainly the debt will no longer exist when the IP finishes his work, but as I discussed in posts #3761 and #3871, that should not prevent CRT from holding No. 750 Leicester Ltd to ransom using their powers under the Transport Act 1962. I repeat my question from the latter post, which I don't think you or anyone else has answered since:

[adding on £30,00 for Apr-Dec 2013] under what law could that new owner compel CRT to grant a new NAA without payment of the £215,000?

 

Most of your posts make pretty good sense, but this is just plain silly. CRT cannot require payment of the £215,000 debt because that debt does not exist.

 

Under what law can CRT just arbitrarily add £215,000 to the cost of an NAA, for only this individual company?

 

The £215,000 is gone - forever! Get over it!

[mayalld]

They have already lost those moorings for the last 5 years - they either give QMP2 an NAA and risk non-payment (unlikely as I bet C&RT would be like a rat up a drainpipe if the payments were a day overdue) or they can reinstate the 30 moorings they originally removed.

 

Either way they gain more than they have at the moment.

The 1 for 10 removal is part of the defunct NAA. That deal is now off and they can reinstate the moorings.

 

If CRT decides to offer a new NAA they are under no obligation to offer the same 1 for 10 deal.

 

The thing about this whole mess that strikes me is that if we consider the shortfall in what PL says they could afford, then compare it to the excess salary paid to PL, it is clear that the NAA could have been paid if only PL had decided that his salary was to be governed by affordability rather than his inflated sense of his own value.

[StarUKKiwi]

 

The £180,000 debt cannot be RECOVERED, it is dead, gone, deceased, an ex-debt, its a stiff, Bereft of life, it rests in peace! Its metabolic processes are now history! its kicked the bucket, its shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!!

 

THIS IS AN EX-CONTRACT with an EX-COMPANY

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE

ROFLMAO - i know I shouldn't, but that did make me laugh - well done (greenie!)

[MtB]

A good point there from Dave.

 

Let No 750 Leicester Ltd have a new NAA (provided a Bank Guarantee is obtained) but restore the cancelled online moorings regardless which will allow CRT to catch up on the previous loss. This way CRT makes up the shortfall but neither No 750 Leicester Ltd nor anyone else is seen to be paying it.

 

Mr Lillie junior's inappropriately high salary becomes irrelevant once a Bank Guarantee is in place.

 

MtB

[Peter X]

 

Most of your posts make pretty good sense, but this is just plain silly. CRT cannot require payment of the £215,000 debt because that debt does not exist.

 

Under what law can CRT just arbitrarily add £215,000 to the cost of an NAA, for only this individual company?

 

The £215,000 is gone - forever! Get over it!

 

Not silly at all, the answer to your question was there in my post, Transport Act 1962. In an earlier post #3761 I referred to, I explained how I relied upon section 43 of the Act

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/10-11/46/section/43

to argue that the CRT can impose virtually any condition they like for a new NAA. The non-existence of the debt is irrelevant!

So then the new company would need to answer my question or pay up. Can you answer it?

[MtB]

 

Mike, I agree that the various attempts at answers you've had from myself and others have been unsatisfactory. So I've had a bit of a dig and the best I can find is this article in which the IP's trade association attempts to explain why they're worth paying lots of money for what they do:

https://www.r3.org.uk/media/documents/policy/policy_papers/corporate_insolvency/R3_IPs_Fees_Paper_D3_.pdf

This document doesn't fully answer your question, but my reading of it is that in the Pillings Lock case Mr Steadman will have to pay the bill as the secured creditor. It also asserts that sometimes an IP doesn't get paid.

 

I just looked up the documentation from my last encounter with an IP in 2012, when my limited company was the second biggest (by a very long distance!) unsecured creditor of a software company which went into Creditor's Voluntary Liquidation. There was no secured creditor, and the biggest creditor was a very rich man who'd invested a few million into the business and lost it all. I got paid because a phoenix company wanted the database and the people who understood it, and I think they must have paid all the IP's fees. Just as well considering that the IP was PriceWaterhouseCoopers and their lowest hourly rate, for "Secretarial/other support staff", was £112 per hour. Yet when I turned up to the creditor's meeting at their extremely flashy office in London, the receptionist had great difficulty in directing me to the correct meeting room despite the fact that I had my invitation letter! Not a £112 per hour performance. The result was that several seriously expensive people were twiddling their thumbs for nearly 30 minutes before I appeared, because no other creditor was present and they told me by law such a meeting cannot start until either one turns up or some period of time has elapsed. Of course this was pwc in London, a different world, and Mr Nelson and his staff will come rather cheaper.

 

Mr Nelson does indeed have a duty to examine the conduct of Paul Lillie and can opt to either go to court himself or pass his findings to the Insolvency Service (a government body) who may then choose to prosecute PL. See:

https://www.gov.uk/company-director-disqualification

 

Peter,

 

Thanks for this. Very illuminating in a general sense but as you say, doesn't answer the question.

 

Without wishing to call into question Mr Nelson's professional integrity the question still bothers me. Especially as the IP is selected and appointed by the director of the company in the voluntary liquidation, as I understand the rules.

 

 

MtB

[johnthebridge]

 

Peter,

 

Thanks for this. Very illuminating in a general sense but as you say, doesn't answer the question.

 

Without wishing to call into question Mr Nelson's professional integrity the question still bothers me. Especially as the IP is selected and appointed by the director of the company in the voluntary liquidation, as I understand the rules.

 

 

MtB

Mike,

Did my post 3113 not answer your question?

[MtB]

Mike,

Did my post 3113 not answer your question?

 

No idea, but probably not or I wouldn't still be commenting about it.

 

I can't remember what you said or how to go about finding 3113. Any chance of copy'N'pasting what you said?

 

 

MtB

[costalot]

QMH has started a new company (No. 750 Leicester Ltd) to replace QMP.

 

The IP now has control of QMP which still has the NAA. Can the IP request CRT transfer the NAA to No. 750 Leicester Ltd and can CRT unreasonable refuse to do so?

 

If CRT were willing to consider transferring the NAA to No. 750 Leicester Ltd (ie, not unreasonably withhold) then surely the NAA has a value and the IP should be able to “extract” some money from No. 750 Leicester Ltd for the NAA?

 

If the NAA were transferred from QMP to No. 750 Leicester Ltd would CRT be able to alter the original conditions?

 

Assuming the original NAA still exists, then doesn’t this prevent CRT from reinstating the towpath moorings?

 

 

Edited to correct typo

Edited March 10, 2014 by costalot

[mayalld]

QMH has started a new company (No. 750 Leicester Ltd) to replace QMP.

 

The IP now has control of QMP which still has the NAA. Can the IP request CRT transfer the NAA to No. 750 Leicester Ltd and can CRT unreasonable refuse to do so?

 

If CRT were willing to consider transferring the NAA to No. 750 Leicester Ltd (ie, not unreasonably withhold) then surely the NAA has a value and the IP should be able to “extract” some money from No. 750 Leicester Ltd for the NAA?

 

If the NAA were transferred from QMP to No. 750 Leicester Ltd would CRT be able to alter the original conditions?

 

Assuming the original NAA still exists, then doesn’t this prevent CRT from reinstating the towpath moorings?

 

 

Edited to correct typo

 

The sticking point here is that the NAA doesn't exist any more. CRT have been quite clear that they have terminated the NAA for non-payment, and in the absence of any counterclaim from PLM that they were contesting CRT's right to terminate, I think we can safely assume that the original NAA is dead in the water.

 

Hence ther is nothing there that the IP can sell to "750". On the one hand, had there been something to sell, it would have made some money available for the unsecured creditors, but given that Steadman is an unsecured creditor for £750k (balance of the mortgage), and that PLM is an unsecured creditor for £1.6m, the dividend that selling the NAA would bring to CRT is minimal, and it is far better for them to have the whip hand in negotiating another NAA.

 

On the subject of the closed moorings, there may be a fly in the ointment. Whilst the NAA with Pillings is dead and that duty to pillings likewise, it is possible that the obligation extends to other NAA marinas. The obligation may well be to close 10% for any other marinas they allow.

[johnthebridge]

 

No idea, but probably not or I wouldn't still be commenting about it.

 

I can't remember what you said or how to go about finding 3113. Any chance of copy'N'pasting what you said?

 

 

MtB

Nope, 'fraid not, as I haven't learnt how to do it, but it's on page 156 of this saga, just over halfway down, on February 22nd at 13.06 hours.

[David Mack]

QMH has started a new company (No. 750 Leicester Ltd) to replace QMP.

 

The IP now has control of QMP which still has the NAA. Can the IP request CRT transfer the NAA to No. 750 Leicester Ltd and can CRT unreasonable refuse to do so?

 

If CRT were willing to consider transferring the NAA to No. 750 Leicester Ltd (ie, not unreasonably withhold) then surely the NAA has a value and the IP should be able to extract some money from No. 750 Leicester Ltd for the NAA?

 

If the NAA were transferred from QMP to No. 750 Leicester Ltd would CRT be able to alter the original conditions?

 

Assuming the original NAA still exists, then doesnt this prevent CRT from reinstating the towpath moorings?

 

 

Edited to correct typo

But the NAA doesn't still exist. CRT terminated the agreement due to QMH's failure to comply with its terms. So there is no NAA to transfer.

[bargemast]

This is the post of page 156 halfway the page.

Posted 22 February 2014 - 02:06 PM

Mike the Boilerman, on 22 Feb 2014 - 12:37 PM, said:

 

That's talking about IVAs not company insolvencies, although the answer is basically the same, the creditors pay it out of their distribution.

 

I still don't understand why this question provokes such prickly answers but I'll pose it again.

 

Given there are no unencumbered assets to pay the IP in this specific case, how is he getting paid or is he working pro bono?

 

Thanks.

 

MtB

 

mtB

"The IP is paid from the company's or individual assets. In receiverships the fees are negotiated by the lender who appoints the receiver. In all other types of insolvency, they are agreed by the creditors committee or creditors, or failing that, by the court. The fees normally take account of time spent by the IP and his staff, the value of the assets realised and the complexity of the case." (Price Waterhouse Coopers.)

[johnthebridge]

 

This is the post of page 156 halfway the page.

Posted 22 February 2014 - 02:06 PM

Mike the Boilerman, on 22 Feb 2014 - 12:37 PM, said:

"The IP is paid from the company's or individual assets. In receiverships the fees are negotiated by the lender who appoints the receiver. In all other types of insolvency, they are agreed by the creditors committee or creditors, or failing that, by the court. The fees normally take account of time spent by the IP and his staff, the value of the assets realised and the complexity of the case." (Price Waterhouse Coopers.)

 

I'm obliged Bargemast. Thanks.

[costalot]

Well I've gone and done what I should have done 200+ pages ago. (duh!) Looked at the information on the CRT website

 

Two interesting pieces of information

 

 

New Marinas

http://canalrivertrust.org.uk/new-marinas-unit/our-application-process

 

………….. before we grant the Network Access Agreement we will require the party who will complete it to provide us with evidence that they are able to meet the financial commitments required. If necessary we will require assurances in the form of parent company or personal guarantees, a fee deposit in the form of a bond to be held by us against any default or other types of security which are normal in transactions of this importance.

 

 

Network Access Agreement

http://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/library/266.pdf

……….This will be paid by equal 3 monthly payments in advance. It will be reviewed annually to reflect any increases in the marina mooring rate. Interest is payable on late payments.

 

AND

 

.....Gives CRT step in rights in case of default and to seal off the access if necessary

 

One can only wonder why CRT didn't simply blockage the marina at the end of the second year rather than going to the time and expense of taking the matter to court!