Ernst & Young are currently sending out letters to Highbury freelances, advising them of where they stand. If you don’t receive yours within the next few days and Highbury owe you money, you should give Lukshmi Arulkumarasan a call on 020 7608 6304 (she’s Margaret Mills’ assistant).
There are a few notable points in the letter:
- E&Y won’t pay for any work delivered after 20th January, unless it was approved by one of the Joint Administrative Receivers (herself, R J Beard and S J Edel).
- If you’re working on anything for Highbury still, even if it was “ringfenced”, stop now or you’ll probably be doing it with no payment in sight. You should also send a statement of any Highbury orders that you haven’t completed.
- You need to send Ms Mills a detailed statement of any sums you’re owed.
- If you have a preferential claim under section 386 of the Insolvency Act 1986, you need to advise her immediately. That’s very unlikely though
- You may get VAT bad debt relief on anything older than six months. You’ll obviously have to be paying VAT to qualify for that.
- She considers it unlikely there will be any surplus available for non preferential creditors. However, she’ll be preparing a report in three months’ time to deliver the bad news and give an indication of likely dividend prospects.
She also says that the company directors haven’t yet submit a statement of affairs so the company’s full financial position isn’t known yet. Want to bet it’s probably a lot worse than we already thought?