Compulsory Liquidation in UK Law

It may sometimes be beneficial to the company and its creditors that the company should be enabled to complete a particular contract or project, or to continue to carry on its business generally in its ordinary course with a view to a sale of the business as a going concern. In considering whether to make a validating order the court must always, in my opinion, do its best to ensure that the interests of the unsecured creditors will not be prejudiced.

A disposition carried out in good faith in the ordinary course of business at a time when the parties are unaware that a petition has been presented may, it seems, normally be validated by the court (see re Wiltshire Iron Co.

On the one hand the court expects any liquidator, whether in a compulsory winding up or a voluntary winding up, to be efficient and vigorous and unbiased in his conduct of the liquidation, and it should have no hesitation in removing a liquidator if satisfied that he has failed to live up to those standards at least unless it can be reasonably confident that he will live up to those requirements in the future.

In a disqualification application, hearsay evidence untested by cross-examination of the informant may be insufficient to satisfy the burden of proof against opposing evidence. It will depend upon the facts and probabilities of each case. But that is no reason why their hearsay evidence obtained under section 447 should be inadmissible. Much of what they say may be uncontested, in which case it would have been a waste of time and money to insist that they swear affidavits.