Upon receiving notice of impending action from the DTI, the individual will shortly thereafter be served with substantial documentation which will be the commencement of proceedings on behalf of the DTI.

Typically the Claim Form (which will be the Court document setting out what the DTI is complaining of and what they are asking the Court to do) accompanied by perhaps one or two Affidavits of Civil Servants setting out minor details of the matter together with what is usually a very substantial Affidavit from the liquidator of the company in question which contains the detail of the reasons for disqualification will be served upon the defendants.

a) to fight the proceedings b) to admit the offence c) to do nothing (in which case a disqualification order and a costs order will in all likelihood be made against the defendant/s.

The Defendant could decide to strongly defend proceedings. This will of course require funding. Those funds can either come from private funds of the Defendant or from Legal Aid if it is available.

Alternatively, the Defendant may wish to admit all or some of the allegations and to negotiate with the DTI with a view to compromising proceedings. This procedure is usually known as the “Carecraft” procedure.

In any event if an individual receives notice of disqualification proceedings, he should urgently seek legal advice.

There are numerous ramifications of a disqualification order. Firstly, the individual will be disqualified from acting in the promotion, formation, management or directing the affairs of a limited company. For most company directors this would effectively remove the ability of that individual to generate income. This could therefore be catastrophic to that individual’s financial circumstances.

Secondly, as set out above, a substantial costs order would ordinarily be made in favour of the DTI. Please be aware that these proceedings are extremely expensive to bring on behalf of the DTI and also to defend. It is therefore likely that an extremely substantial costs order will be made against the defendant/s.

The length of disqualification can be for a period of up to fifteen years.