Winding Up a Company to Enforce an EAT Award

Our client secured a €40,000+ award from the EAT but the employer company ceased trading and was insolvent by the time the award issued. Employees in this situation are supposed to be protected by the insolvency fund. However, the fund can only be accessed when the company goes into formal liquidation.

To make the application to the fund, we petitioned the High Court to wind up the company, had our client’s nominee appointed liquidator and the liquidator in turn was able to make the application and recover the award for our client’s benefit.

This area of employee protection requires urgent review as the process is lengthy and expensive. Employees should be allowed make a direct application to the fund without the necessity of involving the High Court and appointing a liquidator.