ABSTRACT
Section 208 of the Insolvency Act 1986 provides that any past or present officer, including a shadow director, of a company in liquidation will commit an offence if he or she does any of the following:
(a) fails to give full discovery to the best of his or her knowledge and belief of the company’s property and of its disposal other than in the ordinary way of the company’s business;
(b) fails to deliver up company property in his or her custody and control which he or she is required to deliver up;
(c) fails to deliver up company books and papers in his or her custody or control which he or she is required to deliver up;17
(d) fails to inform the liquidator as soon as practicable of any false debts which he or she knows or believes to have been proved;
(e) after the start of the liquidation, prevents the production of any book or paper affecting or relating to the company’s property or affairs unless he or she can prove that he or she had no intent to conceal the state of affairs of the company or to defeat the law;18
(f) attempts to account for any part of the company’s property by fictitious losses or expenses within the 12 months preceding the winding up at a meeting of the company’s creditors or after the start of the winding up.
