Dowsing the Flames of ‘Pheonixing’ – Insolvency Regulation Change

Regular readers to our newsletters, blogs and social media will know that we’re championing insolvency regulation and law changes.

The goal is to prevent reckless company directors from evading all liabilities, with such ease when their companies enter insolvency.

The process of closing a business and then ‘phoenixing’ a new company from the flames, free of debt needs to stop. It is the scourge of all small businesses.

We’re campaigning with the Government’s Small Business Commissioner Paul Uppal for changes in both law and legislation.  Reckless directors must remain responsible and be held accountable for their actions.

We reported last month discussions we’d had with the Commissioner’s office about what changes needed to be implemented. This directly led to meetings both with the business regulatory bodies i.e. Companies House and in the annals of power in Parliament.

It seems no coincidence then, that the Government has just announced new measures. These measures are aimed directly at forcing reckless directors to become more accountable for their actions.

Notably the Government said it wants to stop the practice known as ‘phoenixing’. Plus it stated that for the first time, directors dissolving companies to dodge debts will face misconduct investigations.

Change is starting to be noticed. Indeed Stuart Firth, President of the Insolvency and Trade Body R3 stated…  “The Government’s announcement that it will look to disqualify directors of such companies, is an important part of ensuring that directors are less likely to walk away from their responsibilities”.

Now we’re not stating that we’re directly responsible for these steps but we’ll happily take some credit where necessary.

We’ll continue to converse with the Commissioner’s office and the next stop is conversations with The Insolvency Service, to discuss how we can put these plans and ideals into general practice.

Watch this space….