Directors Disqualification

Our insolvency and restructuring lawyers have a great deal of experience in dealing with claims against directors using the powers in the Company Directors Disqualification Act.

We have produced a range of guidance notes on directors disqualification including:

• What you need to know
• When and how can I be disqualified as a Director?
• What happens if I receive correspondence from the Insolvency Service?
• What happens if I receive a Directors Disqualification ‘Section 16 Letter’?
• What happens if I receive a letter of demand from an Insolvency Practitioner
• How does the disqualification undertakings procedure work?
• How can I defend a Director Disqualification claim?
• An overview of Compensation Orders and how they work

Director disqualification proceedings

Proceedings under the Act are brought by the Insolvency Service. The proceedings are issued on the basis that it is felt that it is in the public interest to attempt to secure the disqualification of the director so that they are not in a position to affect the public again. This is done on the condition that to take a company into insolvency will cause damage to creditors and thus the actions of the directors, in doing this, will not be considered to be in the public interest.

When faced with potential director’s disqualification proceedings, our team consider, review and respond to the allegations with the intention of moving you to a point where the Insolvency Service will consider all of the evidence that they have been provided with and will decide not to proceed with the issue of proceedings.

Our team also has a vast amount of experience in providing advice in respect of when is the right time to consider providing an undertaking to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy so that you remove the threat of incurring further costs in taking the potential claim to court. Our team can also provide expert advice, when dealing with these claims, in the strategic use of applications for leave to act as a director of a company whilst you are disqualified, made under Section 17 of the Act. This advice can be of crucial assistance because it allows you, potentially, to remain as a director, subject to the facts of the application and the company involved, of a named company throughout the period by making the application under Section 17 of the Act.

It is fair to say that using the team at Rix & Kay gives you an advantage over other firms as our team members have actual experience of bringing proceedings for disqualification on behalf of the Insolvency Service, with our team members having worked at both the Insolvency Service and the Treasury Solicitor (now the Government Legal Department), carrying out investigations to develop disqualification applications and ultimately bring them to court for disqualification, and then to counter that, working in a number of law firms, on behalf of directors to defeat the disqualification claims that they are facing.