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Retail mogul Mike Ashley has failed to trigger an investigation into the financial affairs of embattled department store chain Debenhams, reports have claimed.
According to Sky News, Ashley’s lawyers requested that a “provisional liquidator” be appointed to handle the investigation.
However, judge Mark Mullen refused to make the appointment during a hearing at the specialist Insolvency and Companies Court yesterday (28 May), as Debenhams’ shareholders and creditors were not “aware of the application”.
Mullen said he could reconsider the claim at another hearing, but wanted the application to be “known about” first .
In September last year, The High Court rejected a legal challenge against Debenhams’ proposed CVA, which was funded by Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct.
The challenge was made by the Combined Property Control Group (CPC) – the landlord of six Debenhams stores in England as it argued the CVA was “designed to create a situation in which the company’s general body of unsecured creditors is paid in full at the expense of certain landlords and local authorities”.
Sports Direct dropped its own legal challenge in July 2019, but continued to financially back CPC’s efforts. However, the High Court ruled in favour of Debenhams claiming that its CVA proposal continued to “be effective”.
