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26 March 2021 / Natasha Jackson , Katharine Bailey
Issue: 7926 / Categories: Features , Charities
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Charities, trustees, directors & disqualification

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Natasha Jackson & Katharine Bailey explore the implications of the Kids Company litigation for charities & their directors
  • In February, the High Court dismissed the disqualification case against the trustees and CEO of the charity Kids Company, finding that its founder was not a director and that none of the defendants were unfit to be directors.
  • This was the first case in which the court had to decide whether a CEO of a charity would be a de facto director of that charity.
  • The decision has crucial implications for the charity sector and the volunteers upon which it depends to function.

Kids Company was founded in 1996 by Camila Batmanghelidjh (pictured) to support the most vulnerable children who fell through the cracks in mainstream services. Despite securing hundreds of millions of pounds in donations from celebrity donors and winning more than £42m in government grants, the ever-increasing demand for Kids Company’s services led to financial difficulties for the charity. It collapsed in 2015 in the wake of unfounded allegations

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