Our expert teams constantly strive to deliver in our customers' times of need. In this particular case, we explore how a disqualification decision into a Director’s capacity was flipped with RSA’s help.
The incident
Our customer’s entity (The Insured) was awarded a contract from their local County Council. The contract was granted to refurbish a small building on the grounds of a local business. During the work, an employee was stood on top of a concrete roof when it collapsed, causing themselves serious injury.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated the incident. As a result of their findings, the Director of the entity had no choice but to plead guilty to the event. They paid a fine issued by the HSE, and the business unfortunately entered liquidation.
Three years later, the Insolvency Services got in touch with the former Director. They were informed that the services were investigating the conduct of them in their capacity as Director of the entity at the time of the event. This attached back to the original HSE notification.
The claim
The Insolvency Services conducted their investigation. They recommended that the disqualification proceedings against the Director should proceed, in light of breaches of health and safety legislation. This is where we were able to step in and support.
After liaising with our customer, our legal team worked closely with the ex-Director alongside our counsel over a significant amount of time. Our counsel advised it's extremely rare for a personal disqualification of this kind to be sought, particularly following on from the sole prosecution of a public body. A trail date had been agreed, and we continued to support our customer and liaise with the HSE in the lead up.
The outcome
The trial was held, and as a result of our legal team previously supplying specialist advice to the HSE on this case, the dismissal application was dismissed. Costs were also awarded in the ex-Director’s favour, which was a really positive outcome.
The trial came to an end swiftly after just two days. The Secretary of State’s application to disqualify the ex-Director from acting as a director in England and Wales was also formally dismissed.
Our role as an insurer is to be there for our customers during challenging times. We were really pleased to be able to act upon this, and to share our expertise and counsel to governing bodies involved in the case. As a result of our interventions, all proceedings in the case were able to be flipped, resulting in a positive future outlook for our customer.
