High Court insolvency barristers for petitions, recoveries and disqualification.

• Winding up petitions, opposition and injunctions restraining presentation or advertisement.
• Statutory demands, applications to set aside statutory demands and bankruptcy petitions.
• Administration applications, out of court appointments and challenges to administrators.
• Company voluntary arrangements and individual voluntary arrangements, including unfair prejudice and material irregularity challenges.
• Transactions at an undervalue, preferences and transactions defrauding creditors under sections 238, 239 and 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986.
• Wrongful trading, fraudulent trading and misfeasance applications under section 212.
• Directors disqualification proceedings, undertakings and section 17 permission applications.
• Cross border insolvency recognition, stays and assistance applications.
• Civil fraud arising out of a failed company, including proprietary claims, freezing orders and tracing.
• Office holder remuneration disputes, applications for directions and challenges under sections 168 and 303.

For a creditor, a winding up petition is a remedy of last resort that is frequently used as a first one, and the courts are alert to that. A petition founded on a genuinely disputed debt or a substantial cross claim is an abuse of process, and the company can obtain an injunction restraining advertisement and its costs on the indemnity basis. Counsel should review the correspondence before the petition is drafted, not after the injunction application lands.

Where the debt is clean, the process is mechanical but strict. Service, verification, certificates of compliance, advertisement in the Gazette and the list of supporting or opposing creditors all have to be right, and defects are what adjourn hearings. A litigation authorised barrister can handle the whole sequence from statutory demand to winding up order.

We also advise on the alternatives. For solvent but slow paying debtors, judgment and enforcement is often quicker and cheaper than insolvency litigation, and our debt recovery claims page sets out the routes available before insolvency steps are taken.

If your company has been served with a petition, the questions are whether the debt is genuinely disputed on substantial grounds, whether there is a cross claim that equals or exceeds it, and whether an injunction is needed before advertisement freezes the bank account. Those decisions are usually made in days, not weeks.

For individuals, applications to set aside statutory demands under rule 10.5 of the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 must be made within eighteen days of service. The grounds are a substantial dispute, a counterclaim or set off, security held by the creditor, or some other reason why the demand should be set aside. A demand that is defective on its face is not automatically set aside, so the application needs to be argued properly rather than posted in hope.

Voluntary arrangements are worth considering before the petition stage. A company voluntary arrangement or an individual voluntary arrangement can bind dissenting creditors, and counsel can advise on whether a proposal is likely to survive a challenge for unfair prejudice or material irregularity, which is where most badly drafted proposals fail.

An insolvency practitioner appointed as liquidator, administrator or trustee in bankruptcy needs advice that is commercial as well as legal, because every recovery claim is funded from the estate and has to be justified to creditors. We are regularly asked for a merits and quantum view on antecedent transactions, director loan accounts, misfeasance and wrongful trading before proceedings are issued.

Office holders also instruct on applications for directions, sanction for compromises, remuneration approval where creditors object, examinations under section 236, and defending challenges to the conduct of the appointment. Where assignment or third party funding of a claim is in contemplation, counsel's view on merits is usually the document the funder wants to read.

Insolvency litigation of this kind sits close to civil fraud. Where books and records have gone missing, assets have been moved to a phoenix company or payments have been routed through connected parties, the claim may be better framed with proprietary and tracing elements and supported by a freezing order.

Directors disqualification proceedings brought by the Secretary of State under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 carry consequences measured in years, and the period and the schedule of unfit conduct are both negotiable. An undertaking offered early can be the sensible outcome, but it should never be signed without advice on what the alternative looks like at trial.

Disqualification rarely arrives alone. A director facing it is often also facing a misfeasance claim, an overdrawn loan account demand, a personal guarantee claim from the lender and, where bounce back loan misuse is alleged, a compensation order application. Those matters need to be handled as one exposure rather than four separate files.

Where disqualification is unavoidable, an application under section 17 for permission to act as a director of a named company can preserve a livelihood. Those applications turn on evidence about supervision, the protection of the public and the need for the applicant in the business, and they are won on preparation.

Modern corporate failures rarely stay in one jurisdiction. Recognition of foreign proceedings under the Cross Border Insolvency Regulations 2006, applications for assistance, and disputes about centre of main interests all come to the Insolvency and Companies Court, and the relief available on recognition can be decisive for a stay of English enforcement.

We place counsel on matters with connections to the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Ireland and Hong Kong, working alongside local advocates where separate proceedings are needed. Structures using offshore holding companies, trusts and nominee shareholdings usually need chancery and insolvency thinking together, and the panel is set up for that.

Where a foreign judgment or arbitral award is the underlying debt, enforcement strategy and insolvency strategy should be planned as one exercise rather than sequentially.

Directories such as the Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners are a reasonable starting point, but a ranking tells you about a barrister's profile rather than their fit for your hearing. What matters more is whether they have argued the specific application recently, whether they are available on the listed date, and what they will charge for the work you actually need.

That is what we do. Send the demand, petition, application notice or office holder correspondence with a short chronology, and we will come back with counsel options, availability and a fixed fee where the scope allows. There is no charge to the client for the introduction, and no obligation to instruct anyone we suggest.

Insolvency work sits alongside commercial litigation on most of our panel members' practices, and the crossover is deliberate. The same skills that resolve a shareholder dispute or a contract claim are the ones that decide whether a petition or a recovery claim succeeds.