Companies Act 2014 section 558Q

Process adviser's duty to prepare rescue plan

Section 558Q sets out the obligation on a process adviser, once appointed for an eligible small or micro company, to prepare a rescue plan as soon as practicable, and describes what that plan must contain.

• The process adviser must prepare a rescue plan as soon as practicable after the company passes the resolution to appoint them, using creditor information received or, failing that, the adviser's own estimates of claim values.
• Where a creditor has been notified of an excludable debt and has not objected in time, that debt must be included in the plan; similarly, contracts flagged for repudiation must be included unless circumstances have changed.
• The plan must classify members and creditors, identify whose interests will or will not be impaired, ensure equal treatment within each class, and may propose changes to management or the company's constitution to support survival as a going concern.
• Directors who fail, without lawful excuse, to implement requirements placed on them by the rescue plan within the specified timeframe commit a category 3 offence.

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