Re Kession Capital Ltd [2026] EWHC 785 (Ch)

10th April 2026

On 3 March 2026, the High Court (Deputy ICC Judge Curl KC) ordered that Kession Capital Ltd be wound up, and that new insolvency practitioners should be appointed in place of the former administrators. These orders made on the hearing of the former administrators’ application, by which they had sought to hold a further creditors’ meeting after the outcome of an appeal to the Supreme Court had become known.

By a judgment dated 7 April 2026 ([2026] EWHC 785 (Ch)), Deputy ICC Judge Curl KC explained his reasons for making the earlier order. In the intervening period, on 1 April 2026, the Supreme Court had allowed Kession’s appeal, but this did not change the result.

There was a thin basis for preferring administration over liquidation in the first place. Apart from £800 of salary allegedly owing to Kession’s director, there were no preferential or secured creditors.

At the first creditors’ meeting in August 2025, the former administrators permitted 25 of the 26 unconnected creditors to vote for only £1 each. However, the debt of the 26th creditor, Mr Venkiteswaran, was entirely unaffected by the Supreme Court appeal. His debt alone was sufficient (pursuant to IR 2016, r.15.34(2)) to prevent the administrators’ proposals from being approved. The three connected creditors, who played no role in the application, were however allowed by the administrators to vote for the face value of their debts.

The result was therefore an impasse, which was never going to be resolved by the Supreme Court’s decision – not least because the appeal only related to an order for summary judgment, which had been granted on one head of claim.

In breaking the impasse, Deputy ICC Judge Curl KC agreed with the unconnected creditors, and granted the relief they sought, which included the removal of the former administrators, in whom those creditors had lost confidence. As the Deputy Judge noted, it was “not difficult to appreciate why” they had lost their confidence, in circumstances where the unconnected creditors had been “required to police the procedure at a creditors’ meeting”.

As to costs, the former administrators agreed to waive recovery of their fees, and their legal disbursements in relation to the application. They also agreed to pay a sum in relation to the unconnected creditors’ costs of the proceedings.

Samuel Parsons acted for the unconnected creditors, instructed by Acuity Law.

Please click here to read the full judgment.