Content
Brave New World
Business Not Pleasure
Summertime Blues
All That Glitters...
Casting The Net
Trust Gordon?
It Ain't Over...
One In The Eye
Keep Your Nose Clean
Foreign Affairs
When Is A Car...
Don't Walk Away
Avoiding, The Issue
Brown Is Anti-PC
VAT's Up Doc?
Fuel's Gold
An Age-old Question?
That's Unfair!
Year In Year Out
How Hard To Try?
It's A Rip-Off!
Outlaws Win
Show Some Restraint
Not Our Problem
They Cannot Be Serious?
Merry-Go-Round
Pension Disappointments
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Sometimes a person is banned from acting as a company director. What happens if they ignore that and run a company anyway? A recent dispute arose because a farmer who was an undischarged bankrupt set up a company and transferred his farming assets to it. He then entered into some contracts with DEFRA in connection with cleaning up his farm after the foot and mouth outbreak. The government department discovered he was an undischarged bankrupt, and refused to pay. The court held that the company's contracts were real and it could sue DEFRA on them. The company might have been set up to hide his assets from his creditors, but it certainly wouldn't help them to make the company lose out on its contracts as well. DEFRA would have to pay. It seems surprising that a government department should try to use a technicality like this to try to wriggle out of paying a debt that it had certainly incurred, but perhaps there was more to the situation than meets the eye. In any case, it's worth knowing who you are dealing with, particularly when you enter into business with a new customer or supplier - be safe rather than sorry.  |
© Bayar Hughes & Co., 2010.