Dear insolvency practitioner > Chapter 12 > Gazette and advertisement

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1.    Gazette Notices of Appointments

Section 109 of the Insolvency Act 1986 requires a liquidator, within 14 days of appointment, to notify the Registrar of Companies, and to publish a notice of appointment in the Gazette using forms 600 and 600a, as specified by the Companies (Forms) (Amendments) Regulations 1987. It should be noted that because the form of gazetting is prescribed by the Act, practitioners are required to use form 600a for this purpose. The merging of this information with other notices appearing in the Gazette does not comply with section 109, and practitioners should not adopt that practice.

Section 46 of the Act requires an administrative receiver, within 28 days of appointment, to publish a notice of appointment in the Gazette. That notice is required to include the various matters set out in rule 3.2 of the Rules 1986.

Section 21 of the Act requires an administrator to publish a notice of appointment in the Gazette forthwith after the making of the administration order, and within 14 days of the order send an office copy of it to the Registrar of Companies.

Failure to comply with these requirements renders the office holder liable to a fine, and for continued contravention, a daily default fine. In addition, failure to gazette will result in details of the liquidation, administrative receivership, or administration not being entered on the Central Index, the Service’s database of insolvencies. In a liquidation this will in turn lead to delays in setting up an account with the ISA. If CAU cannot obtain basic details from the Central Index it will need to contact you directly, causing additional work. CAU will also not be able to action a requisition made at the same time as the first payment into the ISA.

Practitioners should be alert to any order staying advertisement, say, pending an appeal.

(First published in Dear IP no 5, July 1987, followed by a second publication in Dear IP no.20, January 1992)


2.    Advertisement of the Appointment with Consent of the Court Section 137(4) and 296(4) of The Act

Following appointment as a liquidator or trustee by the Secretary of State under these sections, an office holder can only advertise his appointment, with the court’s permission.

The Service considers that the advertisement route can only be adopted as an alternative to individual notification if the court so permits, and the office holder advertises his appointment in accordance with the court’s directions. The statutory requirement on the office holder to advertise does not mean that he is precluded from advertising in other circumstances.

In our view, it is open to the office holder to advertise his appointment without the agreement of the court when he has given individual notice of his appointment to creditors.

Practitioners should ensure that before advertising over and above the requirements of the legislation, there is a good reason to do so, and the costs of the insolvency are not increased unnecessarily.

(First published in Dear IP no. 39, October 1997, followed by a second publication in Dear IP no. 40, March 1998)


3. Notification and advertisement of administrator’s appointment  

Rule 2.27 of the Insolvency Rules 1986 requires an administrator to advertise his or her appointment in the London Gazette and an appropriate newspaper using Form 2.11B – Notification of appointment of administrator (for newspaper and London Gazette). 

It has become apparent that some insolvency practitioners are still using the pre-Enterprise Act 2002 Form 2.5 for this purpose and insolvency practitioners are therefore reminded that Form 2.11B should be used in all cases where they are appointed administrator regardless of the method of their appointment.   

Any enquiries regarding the above should be directed towards IPPolicy.Section@insolvency.gov.uk
Telephone: 020 7291 6740

4. Moving from Administration to CVL – Gazette Notices 

The Insolvency Service has been receiving a number of queries regarding the application of section 109 (notice by liquidator of his appointment) in cases where a CVL follows an administration. 

We would like to clarify that in such cases a liquidator is still subject to the requirements of section 109 and that the requirement to Gazette their appointment remains. 

The position with regard to the forms required by the Registrar is set out in a previous article – Issue 21 December 2004 Chapter 6, Article 5 (Filing requirements at Companies House under the Enterprise Act).  

We are considering whether the provisions of section 109 should be disapplied when companies move from administration to liquidation. Any change will be made by way of a Regulatory Reform Order and would be brought in at the same time as the new Insolvency Rules in October 2007. 

Any enquiries regarding the above should be directed towards IPPolicy.Section@insolvency.gov.uk
Telephone: 020 7291 6740


5. Discretionary advertising of insolvency events 

Insolvency practitioners are reminded that, following amendments made by the Insolvency (Amendment) Rules 2009, insolvency office-holders now have greater discretion in determining what, if any, additional advertising of insolvency events is required in addition to the requirements to Gazette. 

The intention of the changes is to achieve better targeted publicity in insolvency proceedings, which it is expected will lead to savings in the cost of administering insolvencies which may be passed on to creditors by way of improved returns. 

Information received from monitoring visits has indicated that many insolvency practitioners are routinely exercising their discretion to advertise proceedings in addition to the Gazette requirements.  The Insolvency Service would not expect this discretion to be exercised routinely in ‘run of the mill’ cases, but rather in cases where clear benefits or a business need can be identified. 

Further background information on the circumstances in which it may be appropriate to exercise the discretion to advertise is set out in Article 37, Chapter 15 of Dear IP Issue 39. 

Any enquiries regarding this article should be directed towards Tom Phillips Zone B, 3rd Floor, 21 Bloomsbury St, London WC1B 3QW, telephone: 020 7637 6307, email: tom.phillips@insolvency.gov.uk 

General enquiries may be directed to IPPolicy.Section@insolvency.gov.uk  Telephone: 020 7291 6772


6. A new contract for the Gazettes heralds significant service improvements for insolvency practitioners in 2013

The London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes are the Government’s official journals of record. They are managed by The National Archives, who publish them under contract with a commercial provider.

In November, The National Archives completed a competitive process to retender the Gazettes contract, awarding it to The Stationary Office (TSO). The new contract promises to be very good news for both The Insolvency Service and for insolvency practitioners.

At its heart is a new proposition for the Gazettes, specifying that:

·        organisations and people can put information permanently on the public record and in the public domain

·        information is freely available, can be presented in many other contexts and places, in different formats, and can be re-used by others

·        the information is enriched, so that it can be interrogated, repurposed and exploited in a wide variety of ways.

It is a proposition that really delivers for the insolvency industry, provided through an innovative technical platform that brings official publishing even more firmly into the digital age. The technical platform will be fully implemented by the end of 2013.

In practice, this technical platform will enable TSO to transform the service they offer to all users. Insolvency practitioners will be able to choose from a variety of easy submission options, including XML, web forms, spreadsheets, freetext and word based templates. There will be a number of dissemination options too, including notice-specific links, bespoke print editions, enhanced data feeds and the ability to share PDFs.

Insolvency information will be recorded as a document (the notice itself) but also as structured data – the key facts of the notice, such as company number and insolvency practitioner name. The technical platform will enable this information and data to be quickly and easily checked and verified against other publicly available datasets. Is this person really an insolvency practitioner? Is there an injunction? Does the company name and number match? Do all the details check out? This provenance information will be recorded, and then the document, the data it contains and the provenance information will be all digitally signed. It will provide practitioners with the assurance that the information is authentic and cannot be changed - essential when insolvency data is to be used in a court of law, or for banks and credit referencing agencies that depend on accurate, high quality insolvency data to operate their businesses.

The technical platform will also support a new, tailored service for the insolvency industry. Insolvency practitioners will be able to access news and research from trusted industry sources, including authoritative content about the insolvency process and recent statistics.

The service will support complex searches for insolvency data to, and include links from trusted sources such as the Insolvency Practitioners’ Association. Users will be able to build up detailed search queries in steps, finding insolvency information about a particular company, that has a trading address within a five mile distance of postcode ‘NR3’ and an insolvency practitioner named ‘Fred Bloggs’.

The technical platform will also support bespoke versions of Gazettes – so a company could subscribe to a regular feed of all notices they, or a competitor, has placed; a resident’s association in Hethersett could look at all insolvency notices referencing their town; or an insolvency oriented library could subscribe to receive only insolvency notices. This will substantially increase local reach and relevance.

The new Gazettes’ contract starts on 1 January 2013, and the technical platform and additional tailored services for the insolvency industry will be available by the end of 2013.

Over the next couple of months TSO will be carrying out in-depth testing of the new Insolvency Service prototypes, and are currently recruiting testers from the industry to help shape and refine the new service.  If practitioners would like to be involved they can contact Holly Ellis at TSO for further information.

TSO would also like to keep insolvency practitioners up to date on progress with the new services and is pleased to invite all practitioners to sign up to its email updates: www.gazettes-online.co.uk/signup/

Any enquiries regarding this article should be directed toward Judith Riley, The National Archives; email:  judith.riley@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk

Service specific questions should go to Holly Ellis at The Stationery Office, email: holly.ellis@tso.co.uk,  telephone 020 7873 8228 

General enquiries may be directed to IPRegulation.Section@insolvency.gov.uk Telephone:  020 7291 6772  


7) Digital transformation of the Gazette 

Further to The Gazette’s update in December 2012, where practitioners were told about the plans for an improved and enhanced service, we are delighted to announce the new beta website (www.thegazette.co.uk) will be launched in mid-October.

Underpinned by state of the art technology, The Gazette has been digitally transformed, and given a complete rebrand, providing many benefits to its customers. Amongst its new features are:

Intuitive and enhanced search         allowing you to search by name, place or postcode, important dates, date ranges or keyword; refine by the most recent, oldest or most relevant; share your findings through email, and interrogate and re-purpose data
Personalised accounts    where you can store your saved searches and favourite notices
Data feeds service

subscribe to a bespoke feed of notices, whether your own, a competitor’s, by geography, industrial sector or any other specialist  area

Permanent digital records   providing you with unique notice URIs for your case files
Helpful editorial content

including news and articles, help guides and checklists, and explanatory content

Later in the year we will be adding new notice submission tools, giving practitioners improved notice placing options; options to draft, save and submit online; and track notices. We will contact practitioners nearer the time regarding this and until then, if practitioners advertise with The Gazette they should carry on submitting notices as they currently do.

The existing website will still be available until all the features and content of the beta site have been tested in a live environment with our customers, after which it will be switched off. Please take a moment to visit the beta site, have a look around and complete our online survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XHQ3DMB) to let us know what you think.

This is just the first release of the new online services from The Gazette and there will be more to follow by the end of this year.

www.thegazette.co.uk

Service specific questions should go to Holly Ellis at The Stationery Office, email: holly.ellis@tso.co.uk ,  telephone 020 7873 8228


8. Exciting new features added to The Gazette website

This article provides an update from the Gazette following a previous article in Dear IP.

As part as our ongoing commitment to providing Insolvency Professionals with up-to-the-minute reliable and informative data, The Gazette’s beta site (http://www.thegazette.co.uk) has rolled out a number of new and exciting features.

You said – we did

Back in 2012, you may remember we asked you what you thought of our old website www.london-gazette.co.uk and what you wanted to see from our new digital offering. In responding to your feedback our development team have been hard at work and we’re delighted to announce the following improvements to our new digital service:

YOU SAID

WE DID

“A better user interface and search engine”

The Gazette’s new and intuitive search function lets you search by name, date, place or keyword.

“Personalised information would be helpful”

You can now create a unique profile to store and save your searches, helping you reduce the time and effort involved in searching for information.

“Historic data which is available for longer”

We will soon be providing unique longitudinal insolvency data, with adverts available from as far back as 1997 (see below)

“Advert information that can be tailored for our business needs”

Our bespoke Datafeed subscription service can provide up-to-date notice information tailored for your needs (see below)

Datafeeds

The Gazette’s Datafeed service is an essential tool for insolvency practitioners looking for an edge over their competitors.

The range of feeds available from The Gazette is highly comprehensive, covering key stages of the insolvency process - from the initial winding-up petition to the liquidation of an insolvent company. This range allows an insolvency firm to utilise The Gazette’s data for a number of purposes, including key areas such as market share assessment, lead generation and further business development.

By subscribing to our Datafeed we can provide you with business-critical information as it happens. Not only do we provide standard data feed services, but we have also developed a cost-effective bespoke data service which gives you the ability to monitor specific companies and geographic areas. So whatever information you require, The Gazette’s Datafeeds should be your first port of call.

Longitudinal Data

If you’re not looking for recent insolvency information, you’ll be pleased to know we can also provide you with longitudinal data ranging from as far back as 1997. Being able to spot insolvency trends not only allows you to spot lost opportunities and assess your local competition, it can help you devise a business strategy which can help develop and improve your service offering.

We have digitally analysed and stored this historic insolvency data in a number of categories, for example by organisation, location, industry sector and the insolvency practitioner or firm that dealt with the business. This data can be queried and supplied in a number of different formats, including xml, html and csv – just get in touch for more information.

Still to come...

We’ll continue to test and improve the Gazette’s beta website, and anticipate a spring 2014 launch. We will of course inform you when the new website is live, but in the meantime please do take a few minutes to take a look around and leave your feedback.

www.thegazette.co.uk

Service specific questions should go to Janine Eves at The Stationery Office,
email: janine.eves@tso.co.uk, telephone 01603 695192.


9. Placing Gazette notices: what’s changing?

As an authorised notice placer, insolvency practitioners can place insolvency notices in The Gazette via email, post, fax, web form or XML.

What’s changing?

From 30 June, insolvency practitioners will no longer be able to submit notices via gazettesubmissions.co.uk.

Instead, practitioners will only be able to place notices via www.thegazette.co.uk either directly online by web form or XML, or offline, using The Gazette’s typesetting service by email, post or fax.

When practitioners place a notice via web form or XML, they’ll be able to submit directly to the system and control the upload, timing, payment and withdrawal of notices before they are published.

How do I place an insolvency notice via web form?

Once you are ready to place a notice online, register as an authorised notice placer or sign in, and go to ‘Place a notice’ from the ‘My Gazette’ dropdown. You’ll then be able to complete the appropriate web form.


Which notices can I place via web form?

The following insolvency web forms are available for web form submission:

(London, Edinburgh and Belfast)

Winding up by the court:

·         Petitions to wind up (companies) (notice 2450)

·         Petitions to wind up (partnerships) (notice 2451)

Creditors’ voluntary winding up:

·         Resolutions for winding up (notice 2441)

·         Meetings of creditors (notice 2442)

·         Appointment of liquidators (notice 2443)

·         Notices to creditors (notice 2446)

(London and Belfast only)

Personal insolvency:

·         Notice of intended and final dividends (notice 2509 and 2510)

(London only)

Creditors’ voluntary winding up:

·         Deemed consent (notice 2447)

Find out the cost of placing a notice, and read the guide on how to submit and publish notices.

What’s staying the same?

You’ll still be able to place notices by email, post, fax, web form or XML, and The Gazette customer services team will still be available to assist you with placing notices, or for any queries.

All that’s changed is that from 30 June, you will no longer be able to submit notices via gazettesubmissions.co.uk.

Where can I find out more?

Go to place an insolvency notice for more information, and you can contact customer.services@thegazette.co.uk, or call +44 (0)333 200 2434, 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday.

www.thegazette.co.uk

 

 

 

 

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