COMPANY WINDING UP AND BANKRUPTCY PETITION STATISTICS FIRST QUARTER 2006
The Department for Constitutional Affairs today publishes statistics for
company winding up, and creditors' and debtors' bankruptcy petitions issued
in the High Court and county courts of England and Wales during the first
quarter of 2006.
In the first quarter of 2006 the following number of petitions were issued:
- 3,150 company winding up petitions - an increase of 8.9% on the petitions
in the same quarter of 2005;
- 5,615 creditors' petitions - an increase of 15.5% on the petitions in the
same quarter of 2005;
- 13,897 debtors' petitions - an increase of 84.6% on the petitions in the
same quarter of 2005.
Table 1 shows the number of company windings up, and creditors' and debtors'
bankruptcy petitions issued for each year by quarter, since 1999.
A breakdown of the figures by county court, county and region for the first
quarter of 2006 and the corresponding figures for 2005 appears in Table 2.
Figures on insolvency petitions are published on a quarterly basis. The
publication date for the figures covering the second quarter of 2006 will
be Friday 11th August 2006.
Explanatory Notes
1. No assumption can be made from these statistics about the number of
companies that go into liquidation, or the number of individuals made
bankrupt. This information is published quarterly by the Department of Trade
and Industry in a DTI Press Notice which is available from their Press Office
on 020-7215-6405.
INSOLVENCY
2. A company or individual with debts that they are unable to pay is said
to be 'insolvent'.
COMPANY WINDING UP
3. When it becomes necessary to terminate a company's existence, whether owing
to insolvency or for some other reason, the process is called 'winding up'.
4. There is a restriction on proceedings that may be commenced in county
courts, which is based on the paid-up capital of the company. Well over half
of winding up proceedings are commenced and handled in the Chancery Division
of the High Court at the Royal Courts of Justice in London and at the eight
provincial High Court centres. These centres are flagged [O] in Table 2 & 3
5. Company winding up proceedings will normally be commenced at the
court centre local to the registered office of the company, which will not
necessarily be situated in the same geographical area as the company's base
or operational area. The relative regional levels of winding-up activity
do not therefore necessarily reflect the geographical distribution of the
companies involved.
INDIVIDUAL BANKRUPTCY
6. For individuals the term bankrupt is used to indicate insolvency.
7. Proceedings for bankruptcy can be commenced at county courts with the
appropriate jurisdiction, or in the Chancery Division of the High Court,
either by a creditor (the person to whom the debt is owed) or by a debtor
(the person who owes the debt).
INSOLVENCY AND BANKRUPTCY PETITIONS FILED
Table 1
Year Quarter Companies Creditors Debtors
winding-up bankruptcy bankruptcy
petitions petitions petitions
1999 1 3 294 4 748 3 230
2 2 748 4 433 3 221
3 2 748 4 466 3 006
4 2 525 3 849 2 936
11 315 17 496 12 393
2000 1 2 940 4 546 3 314
2 2 560 4 166 3 074
3 2 699 4 229 3 158
4 2 829 4 279 3 211
11 028 17 220 12 757
2001 1 3 124 4 775 3 633
2 2 333 3 866 3 742
3 2 127 3 444 3 806
4 2 681 3 486 3 803
10 265 15 571 14 984
2002 1 3 448 3 857 4 022
2 2 837 3 803 4 206
3 3 092 4 069 4 105
4 3 257 4 601 4 174
12 634 16 330 16 507
2003 1 2 650 4 366 4 357
2 2 577 4 271 4 776
3 2 385 4 320 4 922
4 2 534 4 301 5 268
10 146 17 258 19 323
2004 1 2 617 4 555 5 124
2 2 233 4 422 7 337
3 2 542 3 980 6 901
4 2 614 4 502 7 414
10 006 17 459 26 776
2005 1 2 892 4 861 7 528
2 3 229 5 419 9 285
3 2 977 5 087 9 418
4 3 001 5 410 10 666
12 099 20 777 36 897
2006 1 3 150 5 615 13 897
