Adebayo
Akinbade

Bayo has experience appearing in court and advising on a range of corporate and personal insolvency matters. He welcomes instructions in this area of practice.

Representative instructions include: 

• Appearing for petitioning creditors and companies at the hearing of winding up petitions
• Appearing for petitioning creditors and debtors at the hearing of bankruptcy petitions 
• Advising and appearing on a variety of applications to set aside statutory demands.

Bayo has experience in obtaining emergency injunctions and navigating complex legal matters.

He previously worked for the Insolvency Services (Official Receiver), and worked on liquidation and bankruptcy cases, where the official receiver acted as the liquidator of the insolvent company and trustee of the bankrupt’s estate.

In addition to insolvency, Bayo undertakes a wide variety of work relating to all manner of civil law in both the County and High Court in England and Wales.

Bayo has a growing family practice where he works on cases involving financial remedy, injunctions and fact finds under the Family Law and Children Acts.

Bayo has worked on business and private immigration law cases providing written opinions, drafting grounds of appeal and representing clients before Tribunals.

• Company in liquidation, amount owed to creditors - circa £730,000, with a floating charge on assets (crystallised into a fixed charge) and a personal guarantee by the director on one of the loans. This case subsequently involved a novation between the relevant parties. There was a considerable amount of assets involved.
• Bankruptcy – the unpledged assets in the bankrupt’s estate – circa £900,000, unsecured liabilities in the bankruptcy estate – circa £1.6 million, and total deficiency in the bankrupt’s estate was circa £751,000.

Firstly, this case involved an unfit conduct, the bankrupt failed to disclose that whilst insolvent he transferred circa £900,000 for no consideration to a family member.

Secondly, this case involved a contractor who contracted through an umbrella company for a few years. The end client pays the umbrella company for the services of the contractor. The umbrella company then pays the contractor a nominal salary and a larger sum in the form of a loan. HMRC deemed this arrangement was a disguised renumeration (DR) scheme, which is tax evasion rather than tax avoidance. This was because the loan was deemed not to be a genuine loan, and consequently the bankrupt became subject to an HMRC loan charge of circa 1.2million.

Thirdly, the umbrella company submitted a proof of debt (POD) of circa £967,000 following dividends recovered from the bankrupts’ assets. The official receiver refused the POD on the basis that the scheme was promoted on the basis that the loans were not repayable, and the bankrupt was now subject to an HMRC loan charge. The bankrupt had no expectation that the loans would be repayable. Furthermore, the umbrella company had not provided a loan agreement which confirms that the loans are repayable.

• Company in liquidation, amount owed to petitioning creditor - circa £155,000. In this case, the sole director of the insolvent company lodged an appeal to rescind the winding up order against the company.

The Honourable Society of Inner Temple