Carillion, the UK’s second largest construction company, entered compulsory liquidation on 15 January 2018, with estimated debts of £1.5bn and a pension deficient of c£800m, following three profit warnings in 2017. The company employs 20,000 people in the UK and 43,000 people worldwide. It is thought that some 30,000 companies may be affected by the liquidation.

Company Insolvencies

One of the criticisms that is often made of the UK’s complex insolvency legislation is that it is too easy for the directors of a company to put it into liquidation or administration, ‘dump’ the company’s debts and then effectively start the same business again under the guise of a new company. Such phoenixism has often been of concern to HMRC both in the civil and criminal fields and prosecutions have been made against directors who have undertaken such activities on a repeated basis.

Personal Liability Notices (‘PLNs’)