Legal Advice - Voluntary Liquidation.

[finbarr]

I am in a situation where as a limited company (offshore company, I'm the sole employee) I am owed in excess of 30K by another UK based company. This has been a long ongoing saga of this company owing the money.
The company concerned is a recruitment agency. What they have now done is put the company into voluntary liquidation. They have formed a new company (a week later) doing exactly the same thing, they even have the same client base etc etc all they done is change the company name. It seems they have written off a lot of debt and re-opened shortly after and started again.

I thought there was something in company law to stop this kind of thing happening ???

Any advice ??

[Ian J]

There are rules and regulations covering this type of behaviour if it is fraudulent. Assuming that all of the contractors went unpaid by the old company I assume that they have started out again with no contractors to place as certainly it could be considered fraudulent if they have paid some of the contractors and not others.

You need to contact the liquidator to ensure that your claim has been logged and also so that you can claim Vat relief. He will periodically send you an update of the progress of the liquidation and it is his duty to investigate any claims of wrongdoing that may be brought to his attention.

With luck the liquidator will be from a large and well known firm as they are more likely to take their responsibilities seriously.

[bailiff]

if you send me details on the company name etc Ill carry out the checks for you. If they havent done it correctly then you can apply to the court and put the debt on the new trading name.

Send me a email to office@midhost-designs.co.uk

I have another company which is debt collection and investigation.

I may be able to supply you some information free of charge of course.

thanks
simon

[gj]

You are going to have to accept that even if the liquidator thinks there is any wrong doing with the transfer of the business to the new company, it is going to take many months to resolve.

You are relying on the liquidator being able to negotiate or take a successful action against the former directors/shareholders that either the business was transferred at less than market value or that some creditors were preferred over others. It then depends whether the directors and/or the new company have any money to be worth suing for this. If there is a successful recovery of some money in this way, it goes into the melting pot and you may get a little bit more money on the eventual payout from the liquidation.

My gut feel is that you have lost all or most of money. We recently lost £5k when a company went into liquidation - I thought they had done the dirty on us by putting the company into liquidation as soon as we had got judgement against them - turned out there was a deficit of £820k in total, so we were the least of there worries! You may well find that several other businesses and the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise are owed a lot.

What did the statement of affairs presented to the creditors meeting show? If there were loads of debts, make your feelings clear to the liquidator and then assume you will get nothing from the liquidation - if you do that is a bonus.

If the statement shows you as the only or main creditor, then I would talk to an insolvency practitioner.

I can give you the name of one who would provide you with an initial consultation, free of charge.

Regards


Graham