These Rules further amend the Insolvency Rules 1986 (“the Rules”) which provide detailed procedures for the conduct of all company and individual insolvency proceedings in England and Wales under the Insolvency Act 1986.

The amendments come into force on 26th April 1999 to coincide with the coming into force of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (“the CPR”) which provide a new code of civil procedure for the civil courts which replaces the Rules of the Supreme Court 1965 and the County Court Rules 1981.

Although, by rule 2.1 of the CPR, the new civil procedure does not apply to insolvency proceedings, the Rules themselves apply all those provisions of the CPR and such practice of the High Court and County Court as is not inconsistent with provisions made by the Rules to such proceedings.

In addition to the application of the CPR and court practice, detailed amendment is made of such of the Rules as use language in relation to insolvency proceedings no longer to be used in civil procedure. References to “ex parte hearings” and to the “taxation” of costs are, for example, to be read, respectively, as references to “hearings without notice being given to any other party” and to “detailed assessment”.

Consistent with the CPR, the amendments also bring practice in insolvency proceedings into line with the new civil procedure by permitting, for example, the use of a number of statements of truth in situations where affidavit evidence was, before amendment of the Rules, obligatory.