500 insolvency cases investigated by one firm

Insolvency practitioner Stephen Hunt has claimed he has investigated more than 500 insolvency cases to review the conduct of the previous practitioner in the last year.

Hunt, a partner at insolvency practitioners Griffins, made the claims on the BBC's File on Four documentary this week.

In an extract from the show Hunt said: "One of the insolvency practitioners created a spreadsheet called, 'the randomised time generator’. He typed in how much money he wanted and it created fake time entries, so he could charge about £500,000 on that spreadsheet - which was entirely fake time."

Hunt claimed he was investigating a case where a partner, manager and junior were all independently stealing from a creditor fund.

He also called for better regulation and complaints procedures across the profession.

When asked how easy it is for an IP to "not do a good job" yet fail to be investigated, Hunt replied: "Easier than any other profession I can think of."

He later added that he finds it can be "difficult" to get a complaint against an IP upheld.

According to an Office of Fair Trading investigation into the profession, more than 40% of IPs do not feel the professions' regulators deal with rogue IPs properly.

Vernon Soare, executive director of professional standards at the largest IP regulator ICAEW, defended this claim on the documentary. He said anyone who was not happy with a complaint decision could appeal it with the regulators, or take it to governing body the Insolvency Service.

Correction:

This is a corrected version of this article. In an earlier version we referred to 500 insolvency "practitioners" when we should have written insolvency "cases". We are sorry for any confusion.

Further reading:

Griffins Insolvency Practitioners challenges Pompey administrators with higher return

Pompey administrators hit back at alternative CVA proposal

Insolvency practitioners make £3bn in the recession