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encompass case study | Turpin Barker Armstrong
Yet that year, when John Crickmere rode 5/1
favourite Discount to victory and Fuller Pilch
accumulated a total of 517 runs at an average
of 17.82, was long ago. In this year children
as young as four years old were put to work
in mines, mills and factories, they and their
mothers offered little protection in law.
When, in 1844, Charles Dickens published
The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit,
Victoria had been Queen for nearly a decade.
The author was a favourite of the monarch’s
– she had been absorbed by Oliver Twist
and Pickwick Papers, works that illustrated
the distress of the country’s poor, everyday
struggles of its disadvantaged and the gross
unfairness visited on those entangled in an
opaque legal system, as depicted by the
incarceration in debtors’ prison of the kindly
Samuel Pickwick. Twenty years earlier, Dickens
had endured great personal suffering when
his father, unable to repay the forty pounds
and ten shillings he owed a baker, was
incarcerated in Marshalsea prison along with
his mother and his four youngest siblings.
This event forced twelve-year-old Charles to
leave school for the misery of making shoe
polish in a factory warehouse. For society
to be reformed, law makers had to act.
The economy, too, was in need of reform.
Businesses operated either as groups
established by Royal Charter, for example
those found to exploit overseas lands
such as the British East India and Hudson’s
Bay Companies, by interests established
by Private Act, such as those used to
create the country’s network of canals, as
unincorporated associations, or as sole traders.
This was a time of great technical innovation
and a richness of raw materials, many sourced
from overseas colonies. Yet, the economy
lacked the agility to take best advantage.
Most individuals had neither the funds nor
the privilege to secure royal charter or private
act. Existing businesses could be groups
of thousands or members making recourse
or litigation so difficult to be impossible.
The year 1844 offered an auspicious time for
change. This sentiment was acknowledged by
many in the House of Commons where Robert
Peel was serving his second term as Prime
Minister. In this year, parliament passed laws
that protected the vulnerable from exploitation
and the unfortunate from excesses of a heavy-
handed judicial system, and imposed sanction
on the predatory and dishonest while providing
mechanism for creditors to recover unpaid debt.
A settled Queen on the throne; the favourite horse wins the Grand National; the player acknowledged as cricket’s best batsman leads the season’s averages. So familiar that it could have been any year of the recent past.
EMBRACING DIGITISED SEARCH AT TURPIN BARKER ARMSTRONG
encompass case study | Turpin Barker Armstrong
The Factory Act gave new protections to
women and children by limiting their working
hours. The Insolvency Act gave protection to
private persons by abolishing imprisonment for
those with debts less than £20, and allowing
them to become bankrupt, an option previously
reserved for traders. The Joint Stock Companies
Act created the possibility for individuals to
incorporate as a single entity recognised in law
by registering with the new Registrar of Joint
Stock Companies. The office of Registrar exists
to this day, its current incumbent being Tim
Moss, CBE at Companies House. In the same
year, the Joint Stock Companies Winding-Up
Act recognised the need for regulations on
how a company could be made bankrupt and
its creditors returned money owed to them.
Subsequent legislation has built on
these foundations, and the Insolvency
Act of 1986 gave rise to licensing of
Insolvency Practitioners, professionals
who specialise in working with financially
troubled companies (and individuals) to
achieve recovery or formal insolvency.
Based in Surrey, Turpin Barker Armstrong’s
Corporate Recovery and Insolvency division
comprises three appointment taking partners
and 12 insolvency staff. In this case study,
Ryan Russell, Insolvency Manager at the firm,
discusses how software designed for their
profession helps them respond quickly to win
business, to find assets, to return value to
creditors, and scrutinise director misconduct.
Situated in Surrey and serving clients throughout London and the South East,Turpin Barker Armstrong have been operating for over 30 years. Their client bases includes everyone
from sole proprietors to groups of companies.
Their eight partners and over forty other team members have specialist knowledge in business services, corporate recovery and insolvency, and advising financial services.
For further information and contact details, visit turpinba.co.uk
ABOUTTURPIN BARKER ARMSTRONG
Through its Insolvency Service, Companies
House, Serious Fraud Office and HM
Revenue and Customs, the Government
provides means to report fraud, serious
misconduct, and tax evasion by limited
companies or their directors. The Government
will frequently employ the services of
Insolvency Practitioners and their teams of
professionals to investigate such cases.
“Referrals from HM Revenue and Customs to
investigate directors exhibiting unfit behaviour
are a source of work for Turpin Barker
Armstrong”, explains Ryan. “We must quickly
communicate our decision on whether we
accept the case to HMRC, and this requires
that we understand the asset position of
potential litigation targets which would result
in sufficient recoveries to cover the costs and
expenses of administering the insolvency
in addition to providing a return to creditors
where possible. Logging onto the websites of
Companies House and the Land Registry to
download reports, to read them thoroughly
and to find and extract the relevant facts is a
time-consuming and error-prone activity”.
Turpin Barker Armstrong have found a more
effective approach to this background
research. Ryan reports “With Encompass
Uncover for Restructuring & Insolvency, we
can quickly undertake searches at Companies
House, Land Registry and other sources to
find property and other assets and establish
the likely worth of the individual and what
money may be available for recovery.
Automating what used to be a manual
process means we respond faster and with
greater confidence to requests from HMRC”
RESPONDING AT SPEEDAND WITH CONFIDENCE TO HMRC
with encompass uncover , we can quickly undertake searches at
companies house , land registry and other sources to find property
and other assets.. . automating what used to be a manual process means we respond faster and with greater confidence to requests from hmrc .
encompass case study | Turpin Barker Armstrongencompass case study | Turpin Barker Armstrong
by usingencompass uncover ,
[we] quickly get a feel for the client’s financial situation.. .
[ it ’s] simple and fast, and stores all the
relevant information in a single place.
TRACING MONEY OWED TO CREDITORSIn England and Wales, ORs (official receivers)
from the Insolvency Service manage early
stages of the winding-up of companies by a
court. ORs are responsible for collecting assets
of insolvent companies and they frequently
appoint an insolvency practitioner to undertake
this work. To ensure a fair distribution of work,
ORs maintain a rota and firms interested in
taking these cases can register their interest
and take their turn to be offered work. In
cases where a company being wound-up
is insolvent and there has been wrongful
trading (or antecedent transactions), directors
can be made personally liable for debts,
and in such situations it is the responsibility
of insolvency professionals to trace assets
such as houses, boats and luxury cars.
“Turpin Barker Armstrong was recently offered
a bankruptcy case from the Official Receiver;
when we read the documents attached to
the case we didn’t see mention of any assets
of value”, recalls Ryan. “Whilst firms accept
their civic duty to support the work of the OR,
the risk of taking such cases is that our firm
spends more money investigating the bankrupt
and reporting than we can recover to pay the
costs and expenses of the insolvency and
provide a return to creditors. In this situation,
we investigated the individual using Encompass
Uncover and quickly found an additional
property belonging to the bankrupt that was
not included in documents originally passed
to us by the Official Receiver. The recoverable
value available in the property improved
the prospects of a return to creditors.”
“Because of that experience, now whenever
we are offered a case by the Official Receiver,
we always run a series of searches with
Encompass Uncover to build a picture of
the director/bankrupt. Doing this before our
first face-to-face meeting means should
the individual fail to disclose information
about properties and assets when asked
we know from their response whether
we are dealing with a person prone to
dishonesty, and we can plan accordingly.”.
Turpin Barker Armstrong’s experience is
that the sooner directors of companies
displaying early signs of financial difficulty
seek professional advice, the better
their chances of avoiding failure. To
encourage directors finding themselves
in difficulty, the firm offer a no obligation
first meeting completely free of charge.
“Our firm does a fair amount of informal work
for prospective clients to protect them from
becoming insolvent,” relates Ryan. “Before
a first meeting we use Encompass Uncover
to undertake research at Companies House.
This may involve searches on the company
and follow-on searches of its directors. It
can be particularly valuable to understand
any charges against a company and the
ownership structure. By using Encompass
Uncover, professionals in our firm quickly get
an early feel for the client’s financial situation.
Encompass Uncover makes this very simple
and fast, and also stores all the relevant
information in a single place. Then, should
the prospect become a client, we digitally
stream all that information directly into our case
management system, Turnkey IPS, to establish
the informational foundation of the case.”
ADVISE EARLY; PROMOTE RECOVERY
ABOUT ENCOMPASS UNCOVERLeading firms rely on Encompass Uncover to accelerate and enhance search at each stage of a case.
It empowers them to:
• Minimise risk and error with automation
• Visualise complex corporate structures
• Demonstrate compliance with ease
• Streamline processes to reduce un-billable work
Request your demo at:encompasscorporation.com/request-a-demo
The regulatory framework created in
1844 marks an important milestone in the
development of the UK’s vibrant economy.
The Joint Stock Companies Act was followed
in 1855 by the Limited Liability Act, allowing
investors in a company to limit their liability
to their amount invested. This maturing
regulatory framework has given impetus to
the development of a network of professional
specialists offering advice and services to
those looking to start and grow companies.
Today, directors can turn for advice to an array
of professionals including lawyers, accountants,
bankers, asset-based lenders, and insolvency
practitioners. Information about a client of value
to one service provider is often equally valuable
to another, and the increasing digitisation of
the economy is creating new opportunities
for specialists from different professions
to share information and to collaborate
and deliver cohesive services to clients.
Corporate recovery and insolvency
professionals at Turpin Barker Armstrong are
riding the digital wave. “Particularly in cases
where a client is considering litigation,” recounts
Ryan. “Investigating large cases involving
complex corporate structures can be very
time consuming. Using Encompass Uncover
we can quickly build a chart which highlights
links between companies, subsidiaries and
individuals, allowing our team to develop
their understanding of complex ownership
structures and to identify the ultimate
beneficial owner(s). We can easily download all
documents relative to a case and share these
with a solicitor so they and the client benefit
from our work of developing a comprehensive
perspective of complex matters.”
We can trace the work of insolvency
practitioners and their teams on a trajectory
that originates with Acts of Parliament passed
in 1844. Those and subsequent laws equip the
national economy with the means to innovate
and grow that serve as standards guiding
regulation in countries across the world.
An important counterpart of this framework
is protection for creditors who make loans,
and supply products and services to private
companies. Insolvency Practitioners fulfil
the important role in a modern economy by
working alongside Government agencies to
provide advice and services that help troubled
companies to restructure and survive, to close
down companies not fit to operate, and to
investigate unfit conduct by individual directors.
The digital economy and tools such as
Encompass Uncover present opportunities
for insolvency professionals to work in new
efficient and effective ways that benefit their
clients, their peers in neighbouring professions,
and agencies of Government responsible for
steering the course of the national economy.
WORKING DIGITALLYBENEFITS ALL PARTIES using encompass we can quickly build a chart which
highlights links between companies, subsidiaries and individuals, allowing our team to develop their
understanding of complex ownership structures and to identify the ultimate beneficial owner(s).
0333 772 0002
info@encompasscorporation.com
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