Why the client needed our help
Our client was a creditor of a company that carried out the business of a Collection Account Management Agent (“CAMA”) in the film industry. The service provided by the CAMA ensured that all parties with a financial interest in a film or television production received their pre-agreed shares of the revenue collected. The CAMA had effectively been abandoned by its directors, resulting in creditors and beneficiaries – including our client – not being paid their agreed shares in the film and media revenue collections. Our client wanted us to help them collect the sums they were owed and ensure recovery of future revenues that would be paid to the CAMA.
How we helped
On the basis that the CAMA was in freefall and not being controlled or managed by the directors, we recommended that our client presented an application to place the CAMA into administration and for licensed insolvency practitioners (“IPs”) to be appointed over it. The IPs would manage and take control of the CAMA and, in turn, ensure that the revenues it received were distributed to the relevant creditors and beneficiaries.
The outcome
The court was satisfied by the evidence we presented that the CAMA was insolvent and that it was appropriate to place it into administration. Joint administrators were then appointed. They successfully took control of the CAMA’s bank accounts, both in the UK and abroad, to ensure that creditors and beneficiaries received a significant return on the revenues owed and a much higher return than would have been achieved had the CAMA been wound up and not placed into administration.
Once in a while you get an assignment where everyone makes life impossibly difficult. Mine was an administration which was intertwined in an irreconcilable family dispute. Every party had an entrenched self-interested position, all believed that I was aligned with another and there was a whole host of complex property issues to boot. For over eighteen months I was in daily contact with FWJ through litigation, possession proceedings, injunctions, negotiations, trespassers and the aforementioned property issues. The strategic thinking displayed by FWJ meant that I was always confident that the difficulties would be overcome. Of course they were and when I next need solicitors to act for me in such challenging and contentious circumstances, FWJ will get my call.
Steve Goderski, partner, Geoffrey Martin & Co
