There is anomaly in the legislation, in the realm of liquidation committees. The overall thrust of the legislation now is to reduce the quantity of reporting to central agencies (the Court, Companies House) and to reduce the meetings required to report to creditors (progress reports are preferred).
Even so, it seems hard to believe that the only process in which the constitution of the committee is not required to be reported to the Registrar of Companies is compulsory liquidation, when the company has not first been through administration. On an administrators’ petition for winding up, the certificate of due constitution is required to be filed once the liquidation has started and a committee has been formed by the administration’s creditors committee agreeing to continue (IR 4.176(6)). If there is a committee in administration, the certificate is also filed (IR 2.51(2)). Filing is also expressly required for CVLs (IR 4.153(6-CVL)). However, the position in a compulsory liquidation following a creditor’s petition is not addressed and indeed, recent experience confirms that Companies House will reject any attempt to file the certificate. I suspect the letters “CVL” have been added to the text of the last mentioned Rule in error.
It is something of a mystery as to what steps the liquidator must take to meet his obligation to ‘issue’ the certificate, as required by IR4.153(1) when it is not required to be filed. As a minimum, it would seem sensible to circulate it to all the committee members.