Roughly 440. That is the approximate number of company names on Credit Connect’s list of winding up petitions advertised in the London Gazette during September 2026. It is my own count of their published table, so it is a rough size and not an official figure, but it is a useful one. In a single month, hundreds of businesses had a creditor lose patience and take them to court.
Most credit controllers never look at that list. This article explains why they should, and why two enforcement outcomes published by the Insolvency Service this month make the case for knowing exactly who is behind a customer before the invoice goes late.
The Gazette is a free early warning system
A winding up petition is advertised in the Gazette before it is heard. In practice that gives other creditors a short window in which something useful can still be done. Banks commonly suspend a company’s accounts once a petition appears. Under the Insolvency Act 1986, certain payments made to a company after a petition is presented can be set aside in a compulsory winding up unless the court approves them, which is why a supplier that gets paid late in the day is not always safe.
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None of this means every name on the list is finished. Many petitions are paid, withdrawn or dismissed before a hearing, and the list cannot be compared with the Insolvency Service’s 314 compulsory liquidations in August. What it tells you is which companies another creditor has already decided are worth taking to court. If one of your customers is among them, the right response is a phone call and a review of your exposure that same day, not a note on the file.
The mechanics of that petition are worth knowing even if you never present one. It is built on an undisputed company debt of £750 or more, usually after a statutory demand has gone unanswered for 21 days. Because it needs no judgment first, it is one of the quickest formal routes available for B2B debt recovery. It is also the wrong tool when a debt is disputed on any arguable ground, because the demand can be set aside and costs awarded against you.
When the company is for sale
On 9 October the Insolvency Service announced that Ellan NW Ltd, trading as Knowsley Recovery, had been wound up on 7 October. According to the announcement, it offered directors of failing businesses an exit: pay a fee, sell your company to a new owner, and the new owner would supposedly negotiate with creditors. About 226 companies were bought, and the firm received over £1 million from January 2023. Creditors who complained said they could not contact the company, and the Insolvency Service found it deliberately undermined the regulated insolvency process.
The investigators also found unexplained payments of £573,922 to the director and more than £200,000 of personal spending. David Hope, the Insolvency Service’s Chief Investigator, said the company was clearly set up to take money from directors of failing businesses.
Picture it from a supplier’s chair. You sold £14,000 of goods on 30-day terms. The invoice goes overdue. You send a reminder and get no reply. When you finally check Companies House, there is a new director you have never heard of, a different registered office, and a company that no longer has anyone who recognises your invoice. The debt has not gone anywhere. The person who understood it has.
The defence is to watch for change at the exact moment an account turns late. Set a rule that any overdue account above a certain value gets a Companies House check at day one, and again at day 30. A change of director, registered office or ownership is a prompt for an immediate call and a written demand to the registered office, not a reason to wait and see.
When the person in charge should not be
On 5 October at Chester Crown Court, Desmond Pheby was sentenced after carrying on running a company while disqualified. He had been banned as a director for seven years from July 2019. He pleaded guilty to acting in the management of Wok & Go Franchise UK Limited in breach of the ban, and a jury later convicted him of using a false employment document in civil proceedings. He received a suspended prison sentence and a new disqualification until 2036, and his wife was sentenced for aiding and abetting the breach. The Insolvency Service did not say what suppliers were owed, so nothing here suggests a particular supplier lost out.
The legal consequence is what creditors should care about. Section 15 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 makes a person who takes part in managing a company while disqualified personally liable for the company’s relevant debts, meaning those incurred while they were involved. It also reaches a person who acts on the instructions of someone they know to be disqualified. For a supplier that is a route to a person, not just a company, and a person has assets that an insolvent company may not.
You can only use it if you can prove who was giving instructions. That is why records matter. Emails, order confirmations, call notes and payment details showing that a particular individual agreed the order and the terms are exactly what a court would want to see. If you have dealt with a company for years through a single contact who was never on the board, make sure that contact is recorded somewhere other than your own memory.
Why this is a credit control problem, not a legal one
Lawyers become involved when something has already gone wrong. Credit control is where the cheap checks live. Before granting a significant limit, look up the director on Companies House and check whether they appear on the disqualified directors register. Look at their other appointments for companies that ended badly. Confirm that the person you are speaking to is a named officer of the business.
None of that takes more than a few minutes. It also changes the conversation when a payment is missed, because you already know who to speak to and who holds the authority to agree a payment plan. Late payment is rarely announced. It is shown by a drift in behaviour, and a check done early tells you whether the person behind the drift is someone you can rely on.
From dispute to cash: judgment and enforcement
Suppose the debt is undisputed and the customer has gone quiet. A letter before action sets out what is owed and gives a final period to pay. If nothing happens, litigation in the County Court can produce a judgment. The important point is that a judgment is only a piece of paper until it is enforced against something that exists. Warrants and writs of control, third party debt orders, charging orders and orders to obtain information all depend on knowing where the debtor’s assets are and who controls them. Winding up and bankruptcy sit behind those as the pressure of last resort.
That is where the identity checks above pay off. A judgment against a company that has been sold, dissolved or emptied is hard to enforce. A claim against an individual who is personally liable, because they ran the company while disqualified, may be the route that actually gets paid. Which one applies depends on the facts, and anyone facing it should take legal advice before spending money on proceedings.
A weekly routine that costs very little
Set aside twenty minutes each week. Read the Gazette winding up petitions and compare the names against your ledger. Run a Companies House check on any account that is more than a few days overdue and above your chosen value. Note any change in directors or registered office. Record, for every significant customer, the name of the person who actually places orders. And agree in advance the dates on which a reminder becomes a final demand, and a final demand becomes a decision about commercial debt collection, a statutory demand or litigation.
The businesses that recover most are rarely the ones with the harshest letters. They are the ones that noticed the first change, asked the first direct question, and acted on a date they had set in advance. Enforcement against a company that is still trading, with a director you can name, is a very different job from enforcement against an empty shell.
If you already hold a judgment, or expect to need one, our guide to your options to enforce a County Court Judgment sets out the enforcement routes available and what each one is realistically good for, so you can choose the right step before the trail goes cold.
Downloading our FREE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DEBT COLLECTION is a good first step. If you want a tailored view on your specific debt, we are happy to give you the straight answer, even if that means advising against legal action. If you’re looking for a partner to step in, you can easily request a transparent quote via our PRICING PAGE.
A short conversation early on can prevent months of delay and avoidable cost later.