Why the client needed our help
Our client was the director of a former tax advisory company which had been placed into insolvency.
The company’s liquidators were seeking to attach a personal liability to the losses made by HMRC as a creditor of the company, and had made a claim against him. Our client had a strong defence and disputed the claim but was of limited means and worried that, if he was unable to defend it, he would be financially worse off than if he accepted it. He turned to us for help.
How we helped
We started by trying to find a way for our client to avoid the cost of a formal defence. Initially, this was through correspondence with the liquidators, asking that they drop their claim against him. When they refused to do so, we sought to settle on a nuisance basis, explaining that it would be difficult for them to prove our client’s personal liability. When this offer was rejected, we agreed to formally defend our client on a contingent basis whereby we would only be paid if successful. The proceedings went through to trial.
The outcome
The liquidator’s claim was dismissed at the trial and all of our client’s legal costs were recovered.
As a result, our client – who was in his late 50s and not far from retirement – was able to protect both his matrimonial home and his pension.
I was greatly impressed with the commercial, tactical and technical ability of the team at FWJ. They quickly got to grips with a complex set of facts and, through their hard work, had the proceedings against me dropped and a significant proportion of my legal fees repaid. I couldn’t recommend them highly enough.
A director we defended against a disqualification claim and other claims brought by a liquidator
