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Allegations must be clear
Related to the duty to be fair
is the fact that the applicant has a statutory duty to summarise
the charges by virtue of Rule 3(3). Whilst not a pleading,
that summary must be clear. As Evans-Lombe J said in Secretary
of State for Trade and Industry -v- Laing (1996) 2 BCLB 324
(at 347g-h):
"It is well established by authority
that in proceedings under section 6 of the 1986 Act a respondent
director is entitled to know with reasonable clarity the nature
of the case which he has to answer."
For instance, following a hopeless
formula for expressing a wrongful trading allegation:
"the respondents caused or allowed
the company to continue trading insolvently after (date) when
they knew or ought to have known that they were trading to
the detriment of creditors."
Obviously, trading whilst insolvent
can be to the detriment of creditors, but this formula has
little to do with an assessment of unfitness. The "trading
whilst insolvent" allegation is by far the most prevalent
and troublesome.
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