The High Court recently decided that a prosecution could be brought against an administrator under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act (TULRCA) in R (on the application of Palmer) v Northern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court [2021] EWHC 3013.
The case concerned royalty payments, which a creditor had a contractual right to receive, arising from iron ore produced at a mine in Sierra Leone.
Background
The case concerned royalty payments, which a creditor had a contractual right to receive, arising from iron ore produced at a mine in Sierra Leone.
The parent company of the Sierra Leonean mining company went into administration and administrators from PwC were appointed. The creditor's director called the administrators to stress the importance of bringing the royalty payments to the attention of a third party purchaser.
The administrators subsequently sold the mine, but did not make the purchaser aware of the royalty issue.
In March 2015 the coalition government issued a call for evidence to understand in more detail the employee consultation process when a company is facing insolvency. Last month the government issued its Response. This attracted 28 responses from organisations including law firms, trade unions, insolvency practitioners and professional bodies.
On 22 April 2015, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Jetivia SA v Bilta (UK) Limited, unanimously holding that where a company has been the victim of wrong-doing by its directors, that wrong-doing should not be attributed to the company so as to afford the directors an illegality defence.
The result is clear and not a surprising one. The judgments are less clear however. The Court highlighted the difficulties in developing illegality principles of general application for future cases, but then decided now was not the time to try.
Illegality, attribution of knowledge, and Stone & Rolls: Jetivia SA v Bilta (UK) Limited
On 22 April 2015, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Jetivia SA v Bilta (UK) Limited1, unanimously holding that where a company has been the victim of wrong-doing by its directors, that wrong-doing should not be attributed to the company so as to afford the directors an illegality defence.