Appeals and Reviews in Liquidations

At the end of July, an appeal was heard in the case of Jeeves -v- Official Receiver in respect of applications made under rule 7.47 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (the "Act"), which deals with the system for appeals and reviews in liquidations, following an order that was made pursuant to s. 133 of the Act for the public examination of an officer in a winding up. The application for examination was made without notice and Jeeves was the officer to be subject to the examination. Jeeves made two separate r. 7.47 applications in an attempt to rescind the order, both of which were dismissed.

The matter went to the Court of Appeal where Jeeves' appeal was dismissed. The full judgment is not yet available, but this appears to be on the basis that the criteria required for s. 133 to be legitimately invoked had been fulfilled (eg the company was being wound-up, Jeeves was an officer who could potentially be examined), it was not the case that no useful purpose would be served by the examination sought and the judges had done their best for Jeeves in exercising their discretion under r. 7.47. The applications had afforded the court the opportunity to consider the circumstances of the public examination and the court had still felt it correct that the examination should proceed. A court could not allow such an application whose purpose was purely to assert that some questions were not proper for a public examination, as this was part of the remit of the examination itself.

As a point to note, r. 7.47 is seen as having very wide jurisdiction which extends to review, recission or variation by any High Court judge of a decision of any judge of that court, and enables a judge to review his own decisions. Where discretion has been used, however, the decision will only be reviewed if the outcome is one that no judge in full knowledge of the law and facts could have reached.

For further information please contact Lydia Lee via email at [email protected] or via telephone on 0207 367 2830.