ABSTRACT
The introduction by the Insolvency Act 1986 of the individual voluntary arrangement (‘IVA’) and the company voluntary arrangement (‘CVA’) followed the recommendation of the Cork Committee that it should be possible to make an effective collective agreement with creditors even where a minority of creditors dissent from the arrangement. The Committee recommended that the individual voluntary arrangement should replace the Deeds of Arrangement Act 1914, which it considered unsatisfactory in a number of respects,1 and also provide a more satisfactory alternative to bankruptcy than was then provided by the possibility of a composition or arrangement being arrived at pursuant to a receiving order against a debtor.2 The Committee also felt that something less complex and speedier than the s 425 of the Company Act 1985 scheme of arrangement was needed for companies. This different ancestry of the two forms of voluntary arrangement is reflected in the fact that an individual has to be insolvent or nearly so in order to obtain approval to a voluntary arrangement, whereas there is no such requirement for a company; insolvency would previously have been required for a receiving order but not for a company scheme of arrangement.
