UK: Government responds to Heseltine review recommendations

The Government has published its response to the recommendations made in Lord Heseltine's report "No Stone Unturned in the Pursuit of Growth": see here (pdf). The majority of Lord Heseltine's recommendations have been accepted. The Government has not accepted the seventy third of Lord Heseltine's recommendations: greater intervention with regard to takeovers and foreign ownership and engagement with potential foreign investors to secure commitments regarding research and skills and, exceptionally, to discourage unwanted investment (underpinned by a greater willingness to use existing powers under the Enterprise Act 2002 to intervene in mergers). The Government's response to this recommendation was brief and did not deal with all elements of the recommendation: "The Government is committed to open markets and is equally committed to engaging with companies and investors to promote investment which benefits the UK economy" (para. 1.48).

UK: The Heseltine Review report

The Heseltine Review report was published yesterday: see here (pdf). Titled No stone unturned in the pursuit of growth, the report contains 89 recommendations.  One recommendation - number 73 - concerns takeovers and foreign ownership: Lord Heseltine argues that the Government needs to take a more interventionist approach, including engaging with potential foreign investors to secure commitments regarding research and skills and, exceptionally, to discourage unwanted investment. Such an approach should, he states, be underpinned by a greater willingness to use existing powers under the Enterprise Act 2002 to intervene in mergers.

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).