The Insolvency Service has shared a letter from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) addressed to the CEO of P&O Ferries, Peter Hebblethwaite. BEIS emphasise the UK government’s ‘anger and disappointment’ at the way that P&O Ferries handled the redundancy of its staff on 17 March 2022. The letter also draws attention to potential legal consequences, highlighting that P&O ‘appears to have failed to follow’ the process of notifying, in advance of redundancy consultations with trade union or elected employee representatives, the Secretary of State via the Insolvency Service and the Redundancy Payment Service—failure to meet such a notification obligation is a criminal offence and can lead to an unlimited fine.

The Insolvency Service has reported that Rathudi Mahesh Manglanand (aged 47), the owner of an Indian restaurant in Cardiff, went bankrupt after spending most of £43,000 worth of coronavirus (COVID-19) financial support on drinking and gambling. After an investigation by the Insolvency Service, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy accepted a nine-year bankruptcy restrictions undertaking from Manglanand, which commences on 20 June 2022.

The Insolvency Service has reported that, Shaun David Dixon, a self-employed electrician, has been subjected to seven years of bankruptcy restrictions after he fraudulently claimed two coronavirus Bounce Back Loans (BBLs) amounting to £23,750 for his company. Dixon also exaggerated his turnover to receive £16,250 more than what he was entitled to. Bankruptcy restrictions now prevent Dixon from acting as a company director without the court's permission and from borrowing more than £500 without disclosing the sanctions—which will be enforced until 16 October 2031.

The Insolvency Service has announced that the High Court wound up online pet supplies retailer Funnyfuzzy Tech UK Co., Ltd in the public interest on 22 September 2026 following an investigation. The company filed dormant accounts despite evidence that it received more than £6.3 million between August 2023 and January 2026. It did not provide records or engage with investigators, saying that it operated outside the UK, although it sold goods to UK customers and used a UK contractor to handle returns. Investigators found no evidence of the company at its registered London address. Customers complained about missing or delayed orders, poor-quality goods, difficulty obtaining refunds and poor customer service. Investigators also found that the company names and addresses displayed on its website changed repeatedly, making it difficult for customers to identify the business they were dealing with.

The Insolvency Service has imposed stringent sanctions on Huseyin Houssein, a former London minicab driver, for abusing the Covid bounce back loan (BBL) scheme. Houssein fraudulently claimed a £50,000 loan by substantially overstating his business turnover by more than 17 times to secure over £47,000 more than he was entitled to receive.

The Insolvency Service has issued a guidance on HMRC joint and several liability notices which make directors and others responsible for paying the tax debts of companies they have been involved in. The notices may be issued in cases of tax avoidance and tax evasion, repeated insolvency and non-payment cases, and facilitating avoidance of evasion. They can be issued before an insolvency, if insolvency is likely to happen. The legislation for this is contained in Schedule 13 of the Finance Act 2020.

The Insolvency Service has highlighted the seven-year ban given to Ilford-based payroll and HR services director, Donna Lindsey Elaina Nada, who could not provide the Insolvency Service with a sufficient explanation for the millions of pounds worth of payments going in and out of company bank accounts. Enquiries uncovered that Nada's company was originally incorporated as providing real estate and management consultant services and in its first nine months had three different names—Rasdale Solutions Ltd, Caffe Concerto Payroll Services Ltd and Concerto Payroll Services Ltd—before settling on Village Energy Solutions. The disqualification began on 4 February 2022, meaning Nada is banned from directly or indirectly becoming involved, without the permission of the court, in the promotion, formation or management of a company.

The Insolvency Service has successfully charged Irena Tokarczyk, a company director from Watford, for fraudulently obtaining a £50,000 Bounce Back Loan (BBL) and subsequently dissolving her company, Good Food Shops Ltd, without informing creditors and in breach of the Companies Act 2006. Tokarczyk received a two-year suspended sentence, 100 hours of unpaid work, and a three-year disqualification from acting as a company director.

The Insolvency Service has jailed director Aleksander Staskiewicz, 35, from Southampton, for eight months for offences contrary to the Fraud Act 2006 and the Companies Act 2006. In May 2020, Staskiewicz overstated his company's turnover to obtain a £20,000 Bounce Back Loan (BBL) designed to support businesses through the pandemic.

The Insolvency Service has launched a consultation on corporate civil enforcement reforms, inviting views on 11 proposals aimed at modernising the director disqualification and company winding-up regime. Key structural changes include mandatory director disqualification following public interest winding-up orders, the introduction of a new director restrictions regime for lower-level misconduct and transferring decision-making powers for disqualification from the courts to the Secretary of State with a right of appeal to a tribunal. In addition to these changes, the consultation also proposes enhanced information-gathering powers, procedural reforms and new measures to disqualify directors following a single conviction for failure to comply with HMRC securities legislation. The consultation will close on 17 June 2026.

The Insolvency Service has launched a consultation as part of the second post-implementation review (PIR) of the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016, SI 2016/1024, and the Insolvency (Scotland) (Company Voluntary Arrangements and Administration) Rules 2018, SI 2018/1082. The consultation covers three areas: (1) whether the Rules remain fit for purpose and whether there are opportunities to reduce administrative and regulatory burdens; (2) potential future changes to the Rules, building on stakeholder responses to the first PIR in 2022 and (3) future-proofing the Rules to address advancements in technology and artificial intelligence, as well as digital assets and cryptocurrencies. The government's response to the consultation will take the form of a PIR report that will be laid in Parliament, with any rule changes identified as necessary in the report to be implemented via secondary legislation. Responses are invited until 6 October 2026.

The Insolvency Service has launched a five-year strategy focused on earlier intervention for people and businesses in financial difficulty, faster resolution of insolvency cases and stronger action against misconduct. It plans to improve access to trusted guidance before problems escalate and speed up debt relief, redundancy payments and the return of money and assets. It will also use better intelligence and closer working with Companies House, HMRC and law enforcement bodies to identify serious director misconduct sooner and build cases more quickly. The strategy also targets abusive phoenixism, where directors leave debts in one company and continue the same business through another, with the taskforce set to expand to 50 people by 2028 to identify high-risk cases earlier and recover assets where wrongdoing is proved. The Insolvency Service will also continue working with insolvency practitioners to remove avoidable burdens while maintaining high standards.