The High Court has ordered the winding up of Ely Property Group Limited after finding that it failed to comply with a statutory demand for €53,746.91 claimed by accountancy firm Copsey Murray for services to the company and other businesses in its group.
The petition was presented on 7 January 2013. The company opposed it, arguing that the debt was genuinely disputed. In a judgment delivered on 26 February 2013, Ms Justice Laffoy found the demand had been properly served at the company’s registered office on 19 November 2012.
The judge considered invoices and other records covering the firm’s work over nearly three years. Those documents indicated that the company had engaged Copsey Murray and accepted responsibility for fees relating to the group, including subsidiary and associated companies. The company had paid invoices in 2010 that expressly covered the company and its subsidiaries. The judgment said there was no documentary evidence that it had challenged the invoicing arrangement or the amounts charged during the relationship.
The company’s managing director, Philip Marley, said the agreement was that each group company would pay for services provided to it, and that the company had paid the fees properly due from it. The judge found those assertions lacked supporting analysis and that the company had not shown substantial grounds for disputing the claimed debt. She concluded it was not bona fide disputing liability and that the company was deemed unable to pay its debts under section 214(a) of the Companies Act 1963.
Other creditors and parties also made claims or submissions during the petition. These included allegations by representatives of Space Student Living Limited’s liquidators that £480,000 was owed by the company, which Marley disputed. The judge said she attached no significance or weight to those submissions in deciding to wind up the company. She also declined to form a view on the company’s general financial state based on conflicting affidavit evidence.
The court said the winding-up order was being made solely because of the company’s deemed inability to pay its debts following non-compliance with Copsey Murray’s demand. It appointed Aidan García Díaz as official liquidator, directed Marley to swear and file a statement of affairs within 21 days, reserved the petitioner’s costs and directed that the matter be listed in the Examiner’s Court List at an appropriate date in the Easter term.