[url=http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/764/schedule/made[uThe form of return that every insolvency practitioner has to submit to the Insolvency Service regarding the conduct of each director of an insolvent company[/u.[/url

Posted so people can see that the report that Guilfoyle has to make is probably not at all what most people assume, or might have been led to expect.

This is a statutory report, which has to be completed in every case for every insolvent company. Nothing in any way special about Bradford Bulls Holdings Ltd.

Since it is intended to be used, where necessary, as a basis for bringing criminal proceedings against a delinquent director (i.e. disqualification) (and/or likely to be used in evidence in any action for recovery of funds etc against the director by the IP? FA advise?) then I rather doubt this would become a public document?

Can't see any way that the NON-DIRECTOR honorary chairman of a DIFFERENT company would have any rights to see the report on the conduct of a director of another, legally-unconnected company? And as a sitting MP, he would anyway need to be seen to uphold the highest moral standards, would he not? And I must say that in various meetings with him since his involvement, he has only ever come across to me as genuine, honest and thoroughly reasonable and responsible.

AS MB said earlier, all we are likely to learn is what parties close to the affair, and maybe with axes to grind and scores to settle, choose to tell us. Unless of course criminal action for disqualification is brought against any former director of BBH Ltd - the possibility of which is IMO very remote indeed.

You don't think it's a legitimate enquiry of a sitting MP to find out what happened to hundreds of thousands of pounds of money donated by his constituents? Or, for that matter to act on behalf of a constituent who may have been a creditor? Far from it being irresponsible, I'd suggest it's his job to try and find out what happened.

I take your point about the document forming the basis of any potential prosecution but I find it hard to believe these documents are meant to be kept secret indefinitely. Were the DTI not to recommend prosecution what would be gained?

It seems to me that the relevant part of the form to be completed is 16a which asks for details of any "unfit conduct". l agree with Adey in that I don't know how much use this formal return would be to interested but not directly involved parties such as members of this forum.
As regards Gerry Sutcliffe I doubt whether 100's of thousands was donated by Bradford South constituents. However your point regarding MP's (not just Sutcliffe) acting for constituents who were creditors of the old company is germane.
Like you , I would dearly love to know the true objective story of what happened and why. I just don't know whether the "administration" route is the best way to gather that knowledge.
Oh for a David Conn type investigative journalist to uncover the truth!

The chance of any legal action being taken against any directors is rather lower than an alien landing outside the town hall and buying the winning lottery ticket. If you couple this with the basic legal concept of limited liability for shareholders then however much you huff and puff no-one who suffered a loss as a result of the misguided actions of the previous company is going to get a penny.
As per the pledge money that kept the club running for a few more months so there is no mystery there.

I don't disagree. I just don't know how we make those judgments without seeing the report. The spectre of David Conn is interesting. I strongly suspect one of his key starting points would be the administrators report.

TBH, it seems quite clear (to me at least) that the donated money went to plug the hole left by the withdrawn bank funding, and then to enable the operation to hang on for a further period up to the administration - which was anyway consistent with what we were told at the time, once you stripped all the smoke and mirrors bollox about the nasty evil HMRC and tax bills out of it - I personally don't think there is any huge secret to be discovered about what happened to the £500k. To me that is far and away the easiest of the questions to answer. I have it on good authority, from outside the club, that Hood had lined up administration for if the Pledge failed, and for shortly after Easter. In the event, the directors (old and new) all found they were able to continue in business until June, AFTER the bank got out, so that's a QED for me.

The £500k (and I personally put in about 0.2% of that, and was collectively involved in a further 0.5% so I have as good a reason as most to want explanation) to me is not the issue, although I can fully understand why to most people it is probably the most visible part of the whole debacle and therefore needs explaining. And, as it happens, I am one of Philip Davies' constituents - if I wanted my MP to investigate, I'd have to try and attract HIS interest not Gerry's...

What I am much more interested in is the background to the stadium sale, the role of the RFL, and the loan repayment and its term; what the Hood board's plans were for bringing costs and income back into line given the truly alarming gap that seemingly opened up in 2011 (I presume, with hindsight, they had spent all the 2011 season ticket money, received late 2010, in keeping the ship afloat in Q4 2010 and so had to first run to the RFL early 2011 - when the debenture was put in place) and how much the catastrophic on-field performances of 2011 stymied any such plans; whether what I understood to have happened over Orford is indeed the full story; what really happened over Harrisgate, and who did or did not say what and did or did not do what; how the "new" board post-eviction felt able to continue trading, and yet clearly incur additional tax liabilities that they were unable to pay (remember, Guilfoyle has to report on Coulby and Agar's conduct too, you would hope just as objectively...and I think there are plenty of unanswered questions over their period of office especially since they were the in-situ directors when the music stopped); and a whole load of other financial questions.

But all I expect to appear in the public domain on most or all of the above is what anyone, quite possibly with a vested interest chooses to selectively tell us. Unless of course one of our illustrious RL hacks finally does their job and runs a fully-researched story ...

A business went bust. So do lots of others, sadly. That does not necessarily mean anyone did anything illegal, and it does not even necessarily mean anyone was especially incompetant (although I am sure that, as a minimum, the Peter Principle will be seen to have been demonstrated in spades in this case...) or over-optimistic (although hindsight is wonderful). But I would feel a lot more comfortable if I knew that none of what has gone on and is likely to go on had anything to do with scores being settled, and that the fans were not again being taken for fools.

Heh. Fat chance.

............?

With all these aliens about that might happen! Directors have more rights than the common man (woman or child) who else could destroy all they come into contact with, then walk away and start again. Morally they should be brought to book but legally - snow ball and Hell springs to mind.

In fact, though, company directors have far more legal responsibilities than the "common man". And certainly far far more than the self-employed common man, when it comes to a business falling over, albeit the latter instead faces the horrid direct prospect of personal bankruptcy. To bankrupt a company director when a business foalls over, you'd have to demonstrate trading whilst insolvent, wrongful trading or some other civil-actionable breach of duty.

Or for that matter controlling shareholders, who seem to have fekk all legal responsibility for anything.

I suspect that if there are any possible, any conceivable grounds, for any kind of action whatsoever against Hood, however tenuous, in tru Ahab fashion some of those with strong vested interests may have no hesitation whatsoever in ruthlessly pursuing. So worry not on that score.

Are you horsing around?

I'll stand to be corrected, but I can't see any [ifinancial[/i incentive in any former shareholder or director bringing an action in this particular case. The value of the shares must have been nominal at best and the company was sold at a knock down rate (as known as the best offer, or more colloquially, what it was worth) which probably didn't even cover the cost of admin, so why would any rational person risk a clearly expensive lawsuit (not sure there is any other kind) just to prove a point?

Not sure you could describe the actions of any of our ex directors/ shareholders over the last couple of years as rational TBH. Apart from the bad publicity for new owners don't really care if they all bankrupt themselves suing and counter suing each other trying to apportion the blame. Just glad that none of them have any involvement in club going forward and were starting with a clean slate.

Indeed.

Although there may be some people - acting or ostensibly acting on behalf of creditors - who might be very pleased if they could somehow secure a contribution from former directors towards the deficiency as regards creditors? Which would of course mean demonstrating e.g. trading whilst insolvent. Maybe some people would regard achieving that as a victory of sorts, even maybe regardless of cost? Who knows? Although they might run the risk of getting confused with a big white whale somewhere along the way.

Didn't I read that Hood & Bennetts Firm NAK were owed 70+ Grand, so I expect that will written off as a tax loss?

That is very fair point Mat, though in my own defence, I had factored in the thought that in the cold light of day, even the financial realities might have become, ever so slightly, clearer. As I said in the original post though, I do reserve the right to be wrong, both about the financial aspects and the silly levels some people will descend to, just to make a point.

In the same way the original billed income was part of taxable profits, yes.

Remember to net off the VAT.

The very fact that the club bought services from a company whose directors/owners (and or their wives) were also directors of the club would be investigated in regard to preferential payments.

In the same context, there would be scrutiny if directors used incoming funds to discharge personal debt guarantees. Again this could be considered a preferential payment if it pre-empted a
a directors personal liabilty.

All/most companies who go bust could be argued to have traded while insolvent. They key criteria which would provoke further scrutiny is whether directors were considered to be benefiting themselves in the process, knowing or having likely knowledge that creditors were about to get bent over.

The transactions with NAK were fully disclosed as required in the accounts - and there is no law preventing companies with joint management/ownership trading with each other. As NAK ended up being one of the largest creditors of the company I think you have some way to go yet before you have proved your case that any of our benighted and mercifully former directors gained personally from the disaster they manifested upon the club.

The one thing which I asked about at the time, and which I don't yet know the answer to, related to the former company's bank.

We got differing stories from the former management and from the bank, which was very odd in itself.

However, I understood the position to be that prior to the farrago of the RFL loan/lease transactions, the club had a sizeable overdraft, and the balance of information suggests that this overdraft was basically called in.

It was also my understanding that the amount owed to the bank (but nowhere else) was secured by directors' PGs.

Did the directors end up having to stump up their PGs to the bank? If not, how was the bank paid off? (If indeed it was paid off. As nobody connected with the shenanigans has ever given public details of the situation).

As I understand it paying the overdraft off was main use (along with paying one of the tax bills) made of the 500k raised from us. Seem to remember that hood and Bennett couldn't stand down as directors until their PGs were discharged by the overdraft being cleared but this then left club with no operating capital. Hence the need for advances of the sky monies to pay the wages.

Thankfully it's not my case and you're quite correct as to the law not preventing companies with joint management/shareholding trading with each other. My point was that when one of these companies goes into admin or liquidation, the transactions between the two will be scrutinised for any evidence of possible irregularities. Such evidence maybe the purchase of goods at inflated prices or the sale of goods at particularly low prices.

Or, the sequence of events allowing directors to discharge PGs as FA refers to.

Pure suposition but imagine the following conversations:

Scene one - Bank

Bank Manager 1 " Why goodness me George the Bradford Bulls account seems to have received a substantial sum of readies from someone living at "the Red Shed" or some plebian name like that"
Bank Manager 2 " While my word, I know those golly good sorts down at HQ have spent the last ten years telling us to give money to any one asked, but apparenently there was a bit of an incident and now we are not to lend money to anyone"
Bank manager 1 " While that was fortuitous just as the nice Bull chaps have gone into credit for the first time since that nice Welsh gentleman deposited a postal order in 1963 - we better remove their overdraft facitlity pretty sharpish eh!"

Scene 2 - large hole in Ground in South Bradford
Peter " Oh ****"
Another " What can be the matter Peter?"
Peter " We don't have any money and that squad of ours need paying at the end of the month"
Another " Well do you have any fans left or did they all follow that nice Mr Mcbanana chap to Hull"
Peter " I saw some last week - do you think they could give us some money?"

And the rest - as we know is history

I think standard end of admin form is to:

1) Check enough money to cover fees
2) If surplus after fees - then invoice more fees
3) print standard word doc about having taken lots of time checking conduct of directors and found nothing - then post 2nd class

Believe me if they thought anything could have been easily recovered from the directors as a result of their actions they would have done - but this is very, very rarely the case and they would have needed to have been caught taking cash out of the till.

I suspect something similar but related to the pledge money. The Sky money is paid monthly so no big cash amount but the pledge certainly generated a large amount of money in one go. Bank then took the oportunity to cut or clear the overdraft and our budget for that year is gone. Ties in with timing of the stadium deal to some extent.

As FA says though we have heard conflicting stories about the banks involvement. The bank may just have got wind of other problems with our finances and decided (rightly from their point of view) to get while they could recover something.