No love lost?

The High Court has ruled that the joint administrators of Capitol Films Limited must bear significant legal costs personally, after their application for permission to sell assets of the stricken film producer and distributor was dismissed (Re Capitol Films Ltd (in administration) [2010] EWHC 3223 (Ch), [2010] All ER (D) 175 (Dec)).

The case provides an interesting contrast to recent cases in which challenges to the conduct of an administrator have failed, such as Four Private Investment Funds v Lomas and Others [2008] EWHC 2869 (Ch), [2008] All ER (D) 237 (Nov) (in which an application under para 74 of Sch B1 of the Insolvency Act 1986 challenging the administrator’s failure to provide the information sought by creditors failed) and BLV Realty Organization Limited v the Joint Administrators of Zegna III Holdings Inc [2009] EWHC 2994 (Ch) (in which the court declined to intervene with the administrators’ commercial judgment to terminate a contract). The above cases illustrate that in practice