Company County Court Judgement

perfumeflower

Hi,

I was wondering if someone may know what I could do with regards to my situation...

My story as follows...

For the past two years I have been pursuing a ET Judgement/compensation against a Company ( taxi operator whom I used to work for before I was dismissed) in regards to a successful Employment Tribunal which I won in respect of statutory holiday, statutory notice pay, breach of contract and other unpaid wages etc. During the Hearing The ET Judge had also awarded compensation for automatic unfair dismissal for asserting my rights to the holiday pay. However, not surprisingly, the Company Director refused to pay the Remedy Judgement so my claim was eventually transferred to a County Court for enforcement.

The Company have now suddenly gone insolvent. I received a Statement of Affairs from the Company Director/ IPs and according to their figures I am being led to believe that his Company have been struggling. Nevertheless, I am aware that the director cannot be made personally liable for the Company debts but in a fair world I think he should be. This has left me with a bitter taste in my mouth because the director didn’t actually attend the month of the Hearing but this same month he was trying to register a separate entity in the form of a Property company on Companies house!

Furthermore, to make matters worse, the same day he signed the Statement of Affairs, the ink was barely dry he successfully registered another taxi company under a new taxi company name. ( this may very well be the same company but just with a new name)

I just don’t understand how the law allows a director to literally leave a trail of debts already owing to a list of creditors and quite happily let him start all over again.

This all started two years ago only because I asked for my holiday pay which I had already accrued but as the director refused to pay it to me he decided to dismiss me instead without notice pay and wages.

I would be very grateful if anyone has any knowledge of what I could do regarding my circumstances.

Thank you

phill99

Your contract of employment was with Ltd Company 'A'. Ltd Company 'A' appear to now be insolvent and are unable to meet its debts including money owed to you.


The Director has no personal liability for the debts, therefore he can't be made to pay.


As bad as it sounds, he is acting within the law. He has the right to make one company insolvent (Company 'A' ) and register another company with a similar name and even the same trading address. This will be Company 'B'. Sadly there is very little you can do.

steampowered

Starting a new company after an old company has gone insolvent is all above board. Sometimes businesses fail unfortunately.

But what the Director can't do is move assets belonging to Company A over to Company B. Any assets belonging to Company A must be used to pay the creditors of Company A.

If you found out that he has done so, then that may trigger personal liability for the director.

Furthermore, if there was any 'transfer of a going concern' from Company A to Company B, then you could look into whether TUPE (transfer of undertakings regulations) might apply to your case.

perfumeflower

Thankyou Phill and Steampowered for your replies,

Steampowered, just to clarify, the business didn’t fail initially as it was obviously doing quite well in terms of trading before I asked for my holiday pay, however, as a consequence of my pursuit for the unfair dismissal and unpaid holiday pay, wages, notice pay etc the business had its contracts revoked by the Council. Apparently the revoked contracts caused a 90% downturn in his business.

Nevertheless, I know the company director was just quite simply being greedy and thought he could just get away with not paying what I was legally entitled to. Hence why I pursued my claims.

I know this sounds harsh, but I don’t feel sorry for him one bit because he should not have dismissed me for just asking for the holiday pay. This had repercussions as I was left without a job, income and subsequently had to live on benefits. His actions caused this situation. And given he has now set up company B he can now sleep at night, where as I am still after two years having to fight to get what I have been awarded by the ET/ County Court.

Steampowered, I have a gut feeling that he has indeed moved assets from company A to company B but I will have to discuss this further with my legal rep and the IPs. I have just recently received the SOA and going by the figures they don’t add up.

Steampowered, please may I ask if you could possibly explain a bit further regarding TUPE as I don’t really have much knowledge in relation to this? I would be very grateful.

Thank you

perfumeflower

Sorry I forgot to ask this question in my previous post...

SP, when you say move assets from company A to company B, does this mean purchasing them back?

steampowered

perfumeflower wrote: »

SP, when you say move assets from company A to company B, does this mean purchasing them back?

It would be above board for Company B to purchase the assets of Company A, if Company B pays fair market value for those assets. The price is then available for distribution to Company A's creditors. The sale would normally be agreed by the insolvency practitioner.

On the other hand, it would not be acceptable for the director to arrange for Company A to transfer assets to Company B, without Company B paying fair value for those assets. That would be deprivation of Company A's assets.

Of course the difficulty with situations like this is you may not have all the information needed to form a complete picture. But you can draw inferences by looking at what assets are in Company B's possession, and by looking at what was on Company A's most recent balance sheets as filed with Companies House.

For example, if Company B has set up a new office using computers and office equipment previously owned by Company A, it would be legitimate to ask the question of the insolvency practitioner whether Company B had paid for those assets.

Steampowered, please may I ask if you could possibly explain a bit further regarding TUPE as I don’t really have much knowledge in relation to this? I would be very grateful.

If a business is transferred from A to B as a "going concern", the employment contracts of the employees employed by A automatically transfer to B.

This could be a possible line of attack against Company B, if Company B acquired the assets/business of Company A.

I'm not sure off the top of my head the parameters around how that covers liabilities to past employees such as yourself. Worth doing some googling if you reckon there has been a transfer of a "going concern".

perfumeflower

Thank you so much SP for your above invaluable information. I can now proceed with my situation better equipped ...