Our detailed investigatory work enables realisations to be made and dividends to be issued to creditors where the initial view was that insufficient assets were available.
Lawrence King, insolvency practitioner and partner at K & W Recovery (trading as Antony Batty & Company Thames Valley) has a particular focus on investigatory and litigation-based insolvency and works very productively with both national and regional Law Firms. His work includes bankruptcy cases, compulsory liquidations and contested voluntary liquidation appointments acting on behalf of creditors.
Lawrence has a track record of successfully obtaining appointments, making realisations and issuing dividends to creditors where on first appearance the Company in question did not have any assets. Recent examples include recovery of illegal dividends, overdrawn directors loan accounts, antecedent claims, claims for wrongful trading and recovery of dissipated assets.
In this article, we look at a case study of a liquidation which illustrate these specific skills.
Case Study : Dividend issued to creditors when Statement of Affairs suggested otherwise
The key events were as follows:
- Another insolvency practitioner convened a meeting to place an insolvent company into a Creditors Voluntary Liquidation.
- One of the Creditors via their solicitor requested that Lawrence attend the Creditors’ Meeting with a proxy to vote for his appointment.
- At the Creditors’ meeting, Lawrence posed key questions of the director of the insolvency company, including:
– Why there was a disparity between the Statement of Affairs and the last filed accounts
– The method of the director’s remuneration
– The nature of associated party transactions
- Other creditors were in attendance. The vote for the appointment of the liquidator resulted in Lawrence’s appointment in place of the member’s chosen liquidator.
- Lawrence then undertook a detailed investigation of the company’s financial position. This work included:
– Interviewing the company’s directors
– Interviewing specific creditors and the company’s accountant
– An in-depth review and interrogation of the company’s accounting software
– A detailed review of the company’s bank statements and books & records
- As a result, Lawrence was able to issue a claim against the director for illegal dividends, an overdrawn loan account and various other transactions.
The outcome of this work resulted in a dividend to creditors when the Statement of Affairs suggested there was no prospect of a dividend.
Contact Lawrence for Help and Advice in this area
Lawrence, or any of the team at K & W Recovery (trading as Antony Batty & Company Thames Valley) can be contacted using the below details:
K&W Recovery Limited
(Trading as Antony Batty & Co. Thames Valley)
The Wooden Barn
Barclay Farm
Little Baldon
Oxford
OX44 9PU
Tel: 01235 507001
E: lawrence@kwr.antonybatty.com
Lawrence is willing to act without funding on these cases.
