Corporate Civil Enforcement Reforms
The consultation seeks views on options to reform the corporate civil enforcement regime.
The Government is consulting on a range of options that would modernise the corporate civil enforcement regime administered by the Insolvency Service and add new flexibilities for dealing with varying degrees of misconduct. The current regime has been in place for nearly 40 years and whilst additions have been made since its introduction, the Government is of the view that now is the right time to consider changes to strengthen the regime, ensuring effective and efficient tools are available to tackle corporate wrongdoing today and into the future.
There are 11 options set out in the consultation which broadly fit into 3 categories:
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Structural Reforms- These proposals seek to accelerate enforcement processes, speeding up the removal of individuals responsible for corporate abuse, and strengthening protections for the public and the wider marketplace. Options include introducing tailored restrictions for directors (as opposed to outright bans) when misconduct is due to ignorance rather than an intent to commit wrongdoing; a faster process to ban directors from the marketplace where companies have been liquidated on public interest grounds due to causing harm and; updating and simplifying disqualification proceedings, by shifting defended cases from the courts to a tribunal model.
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Information Gathering Powers - Strengthening the Government’s powers to seek and gather information necessary to support effective and efficient investigations into corporate abuse.
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Procedural Changes - Improving and modernising the current procedure for director disqualification. Making the processes more efficient and ensuring fairness and clarity for all parties.
The Government believes that the corporate civil enforcement framework requires reform in order to continue to meet its objective of protecting the integrity of our markets within the modern business environment, in turn making the regime more effective and efficient, whilst remaining fair. The nature and scale of such reform will be informed by responses to this consultation.