INSOLVENCYDisclosure of documents - official receiver applying in winding-up proceedings to obtain disclosure of documents for use in disqualification proceedings - statutory procedure not available for that purposeIn re Pantmaenog Timber Co.

Ltd.: ChD (Judge Weeks QC sitting as a High Court judge):14 November 2000The official receiver, having commenced proceedings under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 for the disqualification of a former director of an insolvent company, made three applications under s.236 of the Insolvency Act 1986, in the proceedings for the winding up of the company, to obtain disclosure of documents which he intended to use in defending an application to strike out the disqualification proceedings.

The district judge made three such orders.

The former director appealed on the grounds that the s.236 procedure was not available to the official receiver to obtain evidence for use in proceedings brought under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.Stephen Davies QC (instructed by Beachcroft Wansboroughs, Bristol) for the former director.

Bridget Lucas (instructed by Osborne Clarke, Bristol) for the official receiver.Held, allowing the appeal, that the purpose of s.236 was to enable the liquidator or official receiver acting in the winding up of the company to obtain information concerning the trading of the company; that their functions in the winding up, pursuant to s.143 of the Insolvency Act 1986, were to ensure that the assets of the company were got in, realised and distributed to the company's creditors and did not include a power to act in directors disqualification proceedings; that s.236 could not be used by the official receiver to discover evidence with which to defend a strike-out application in directors disqualification proceedings; and that, since that was the express purpose of the official receiver's applications, they should be refused.