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Summer 2006 Newsletter


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

Outlaws Win


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.

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