UK: England and Wales: is an industrial and provident society a company?

This was one of the questions before the judge in Re Dairy Farmers of Britain Ltd. [2009] EWHC 1389 (Ch). It arose in the context of Section 72A(1) of the Insolvency Act (1986), which provides that "[t]he holder of a qualifying floating charge in respect of a company's property may not appoint an administrative receiver of the company" (emphasis added). The trial judge held that Section 72A(1) did not apply to industrial and provident societies, which should not, for the purposes of this section, be regarded as companies. 

A summary of the case has been provided here by the ICLR as part of its excellent WLR Daily service (the summary will be removed if the case is subsequently reported in one of the ICLR's series of law reports).