company liquidations & dissolutions

At the end of a company’s life, it’s important to ensure that its affairs are properly wound up with the minimum of fuss and cost. Liquidating a company is actually a far more complicated process than forming a company and, from the perspective of the directors and shareholders, it’s vital that the correct procedure is followed.

White & Black can advise you on the correct approach to take when winding up a company’s affairs and distributing its assets. We can advise you on the following:

• can you take advantage of the “dissolution” procedure under the Companies Act, or will you need to go through a more formal liquidation process?
• what do you need to do in order to ensure that shareholders will not face a claim at a later date for the recovery of the company’s assets?
• is there any advantage to the company reducing its share capital prior to dissolution?

 Recent guidelines published by the Treasury Solicitor have highlighted the risk of a company’s assets passing to the Crown when the company is dissolved, meaning that shareholders can find themselves being asked to repay money they have received on a dissolution if the correct procedure has not been followed. At White & Black, we are intimately familiar with the legislation here and we can help you to reach a conclusion which protects directors’ and shareholders’ positions and gives certainty to all concerned.