In a case decided on Friday 13 March, administrators successfully applied for a declaration that their appointment, pursuant to a Notice of Appointment (NoA) filed two days earlier, was invalid, on the basis that the wrong form was filed at court.
Administrators successfully applied for an order that their appointment, only two days earlier, was invalid and that the court would accept a subsequent Notice of Intention (NoI) to appoint administrators filed the day after the appointment.
A first NoI was filed at court and, in anticipation of appointment, a NoA was prepared and signed by the director. A second NoI was subsequently required and prepared. The director sent back what the solicitors thought was the second signed NoI, but it was mistakenly a document that mixed both the NoA and the second NoI.
Not realising the error, the solicitor filed the incorrect NoA, rather than the second NoI, which was duly sealed by the court, pursuant to which the appointment of the administrators took effect.
The erroneous NoA was then served on the qualifying floating chargeholder’s solicitors, who alerted the solicitors to the error.
The solicitors wrote to court explaining the mistake and filed the correct second NoI, but this was rejected on the basis that administrators had already been appointed under the defective NoA document.
The administrators, through the solicitors, made an urgent application to invalidate the appointment, as the administrators were negotiating a “pre-pack sale” and did not want to be appointed until negotiations on the sale and the documentation had concluded.
The judge agreed with the company that the failure to file the proposed administrators’ consents with the NoA was a substantive, rather than a procedural, defect, that was not capable of being cured under the Insolvency Rules 2016.
The judge therefore ordered that the appointment of the administrators was void and a nullity, the NoA filed was invalid, the first NoI be removed from the court file and that the court will not reject any subsequently filed NoI by the company.
Currie and another v Fission Recruitment Services Ltd [2026] EWHC 1369 (Ch)
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