The 'Forward Thinking' conference, organised by the Insolvency Service, has sent out a Call for Papers as set out below.
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Background
With the Forward Thinking conference, the Insolvency Service aims to provide a platform for insolvency academic research and technical discussions while facilitating a stronger link between academia, the insolvency sector and policy makers, and encourage feedback from interested parties. While we have yet to identify our next host venue, we are now inviting submissions for papers to be featured this coming Spring.
Call for papers
The Insolvency Service will accept submissions in all areas of personal or corporate insolvency, whether UK or international in focus. In particular, our website has a list of suggested subject matters which will be particularly welcomed: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-insolvency-service-forward-thinking-conference.
We welcome scholars, researchers, postgraduate students, insolvency practitioners, the legal profession and anyone else with an interest in insolvency law and related technical matters to submit their abstracts for a paper to be presented at the conference.
The papers will be presented in person at the conference venue and broadcast simultaneously via the internet. Please note that the Insolvency Service is unable to cover the cost of travel or accommodation for presenters and delegates.
The deadline for submissions is Monday, 13 January 2025.
Conference format
We expect the one-day event to feature 8 to 10 papers, approximately 20 minutes each, with additional time for questions & answers from both in-person and online delegates.
By submitting an abstract you agree, that if your papers is selected, to attend the conference in person and for your presentation to be published online, hosted by the Insolvency Service.
Submission of Abstracts
At this stage, we only require a 500-word abstract of your paper. If you wish to submit an abstract, please send it to: conference@insolvency.gov.uk by the close of business on Monday, 13 January 2025.
Your covering email should include:
- whether you are submitting a research paper or a technical issue
- your name
- firm/affiliation/role (where applicable)
- email
- telephone number
If you have any queries, please contact conference@insolvency.gov.uk.
As many of the subscribers to this Forum will know, significant parts of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 have yet to come into force, and still other aspects require development and implementation through secondary legislation. One significant omission from ECCTA, which applies to companies and limited partnerships (LPs), was corresponding provision for LLPs.
Some provision was made earlier this year via the Limited Liability Partnerships (Application of Company Law) Regulations 2024, but these have barely scratched the surface, and we await future LLP legislation to explain how provisions currently applicable to companies and/or LPs would apply (if at all) to LLPs.
I've published a short piece on some of the potential gaps in the legislation through openDemocracy, and if you interested in reading it, it is at:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/how-to-fix-dark-money-new-uk-government/
Best wishes
Elspeth
This conference provides a unique opportunity for those practising in, researching, teaching or otherwise with an interest in partnership or LLP law, practice or policy, or related areas such as corporate law, employment and tax, to hear papers from leading practitioners, academics and policymakers. It is always an interesting, enjoyable and inclusive event, as demonstrated the number of delegates who return each year.
Advance registration is required. But, in order to save my grey hairs, please don't leave registration until the last moment (deadline end of August) as we need to know numbers of catering and other logistical reasons.
Please do also send the link to your contacts.
I look forward to seeing you on the day! Any queries, please email me at elspeth.berry@ntu.ac.uk.
A formal Call for Papers will be posted soon, but please put the date in your diary!
THE DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION IS APPROACHING - PLEASE REGISTER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE (OR CONTACT ME IF ANY DIFFICULTIES).
PLEASE ALSO NOTE CHANGE TO PROGRAMME (UPDATED VERSION TO LINK BELOW). NEW SPEAKER, SIMON BOWERS FROM OPEN DEMOCRACY.
The 6th Annual Conference of the Partnership, LLP and LLC Law Forum will be held at Nottingham Law School on Thursday 14 September.
This conference provides a unique opportunity for those practising in, researching, teaching or otherwise with an interest in partnership or LLP law, practice or policy, to hear papers from leading practitioners, academics and policymakers.
Further details of the programme (including of speakers who are APP members) and registration are at https://www.ntu.ac.uk/about-us/events/events/2023/9/6th-annual-conference-of-the-partnership,-llp-and-llc-law-forum. Advance registration is required and early registration is recommended as the venue has limited capacity.
We look forward to welcoming you on the day.
Elspeth Berry
Associate Professor of Law
elspeth.berry@ntu.ac.uk
UK law firm BDBF has published a useful short article, 'Thinking about leaving an LLP? Read on'. It is available at https://www.bdbf.co.uk/thinking-about-leaving-an-llp-read-on/
In Gary Lineker and Danielle Bux T/A Gary Lineker Media v HMRC [2021] UKFTT 101 (TC), the First Tier Tribunal held that IR35 could apply to partnerships - see further casenote at https://www.devereuxchambers.co.uk/resources/news/view/ftt-releases-decision-in-gary-lineker-ir35-appeal
In HFFX LLP and Ors v HMRC [2023] UKUT73 the Upper Tax Tribunal held that profit shares distributed to individual LLP members after first being distributed to the corporate member were liable to income tax under the mixed membership rules - see further casenote at https://www.rossmartin.co.uk/sme-tax-news/6879-ut-partnership-planning-subject-to-income-tax.
David Milman and Terence Flanagan, Modern Partnership Law (first published 1983, Routledge 2021), 210pp., hardback ISBN: 0709910150, eBook ISBN: 9781003324874
This is a republication of a classic text, in the Routledge Revivals series. It is co-authored by Professor David Milman, a leading partnership law academic who will be familiar to Forum members as a speaker at several Forum Conferences, and to readers worldwide from his many publications on partnership law, company law and insolvency law.
The writing style is highly engaging and the book is thus a pleasure to read – something which cannot be said of all legal texts!
As readers will know, many elements of partnership law have stood the test of time and the UK’s Partnership Act 1890 continues to govern partnerships in the 21st century, so this text retains much more relevance than most 40-year old legal texts.
Particularly useful discussions include Chapter 2 on Financing Partnerships, Chapter 5 on Relations between Partners inter se (including duties, partnership property and remuneration, Chapter 6 on Partners and Outsiders (including authority, liability and holding out), and the winding up section of Chapter 9 on Winding up and Insolvency.
There are also some interesting chapters which are less commonly found in partnership texts today. These include Chapter 3 on Partnership Employees (covering both the distinction between partners and employees, and the treatment of partnership employees) and Chapter 8 on Legal Regulation of and Intervention in Partnerships (covering the courts’ approach to partnership agreements, including restrictive covenants, arbitration clauses, expulsion, receiverships and dissolution).
Also of interest is Chapter 10 on Partnerships: Review and Reform. Although this predates the introduction of LLPs (and was written before the increase in use of LPs), it does discuss the 1981 Green Paper: A New Form of Incorporation for Small Firms which included the idea of an incorporated limited firm based on the internal constitution of a partnership. Other reforms discussed in the book have failed to materialise, including enabling partnerships to grant floating charges, and granting them separate legal personality, the latter having been proposed by the Law Commissions in 2003 but rejected by the government.
A wide range of cases are thoughtfully discussed, although the use of endnotes rather than footnotes annoyed this reviewer (though no doubt readers less dinosaur-like will obviate the problem by using the eBook rather than the hard copy!). The indexing is helpful, although a number of entries are indexed only within the entry for ‘partners’.
Of course some of the law is now outdated, including references to the litigation rules in the RSC rather than the CPR and to the 20-partner limit (now repealed); much of Chapter 4 on Partnerships and Spouses (another chapter unlikely to be found in partnership texts today), the very short insolvency section of Chapter 9 on Winding Up and Insolvency which predates the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Insolvent Partnerships Order 1994, and Chapter 7 on Partnerships and Taxation. However, while employment legislation has moved on, the partnership-specific principles outlined in Chapter 3 on Partnership Employees remain relevant.
In conclusion, this is an enjoyable and useful source of specialist legal commentary on a number of areas of partnership law, and Routledge is to be commending for republishing it.