Law Group News
Nicholas Grier, subject group leader, Law, has recently been advising the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee of the Holyrood Parliament on the Bankruptcy and Debt Advice (Scotland) Bill, likely to come into force early next year. This is an all-party bill designed to improve access to bankruptcy for people with substantial debts but who are on benefits and have minimal or no assets. In these days of payday loans some debtors are quite unable to pay the interest on their loans, let alone repay the capital, but it is not worth a creditor’s while taking the debtors to court. The only remedy, at least for the debtors, is to apply for their own bankruptcy. This Bill makes this easier, and under the proposed new system , the debtor’s debts are written off and the debtor is discharged from his bankruptcy after only six months.
The Bill also introduces various other requirements, such as the need for debtors to obtain financial advice before deciding on bankruptcy, and the need for financial education for certain bankrupts who might benefit from it. This is all part of an overall scheme to improve the routes to debt relief for those who genuinely need it, while ensuring proper returns for creditors wherever possible.
The law on bankruptcy is highly technical, and so the Committee needed to have both the current law and the proposed changes explained to it. Nicholas’s task was to do this and to help the Committee members frame questions both for the Scottish Government, promoting the Bill, and for the various witnesses who had been consulted on the Bill, such as Money Advice Scotland, the Law Society of Scotland, various banks, debt factoring agencies and insolvency practitioners. He was also involved in the preparation of the Stage 1 report which in principle approves of the Bill but makes various recommendations for the Minister (Fergus Ewing) to consider.
Nicholas has written a number of books on business and company law within Scotland, and has made a particular study of the law relating to debt, bankruptcy and diligence, diligence being the word for the methods whereby debtors can be forced to pay their creditors.