CR-2024-005081 - [2025] EWHC 2374 (Ch)

This is the hearing of a winding up petition presented on 30 August 2024 by Abcor Finance Securities Limited (the “Petitioner”) against Binomia Ltd (the “Company”) (the “Petition”). The petition debt is £305,811.91 and is said to arise under a Parent Company Guarantee dated 9 October 2022 made between the parties.

By an Order made by consent on 9 October 2024, it was ordered that the Petition be listed for a half-day hearing to determine whether there is a genuine and substantial dispute in relation to the petition debt, with advertisement of the Petition to be restrained pending that determination and directions given for the filing of evidence by the parties.

The Company opposes the Petition on the grounds that: (a) the petition debt is disputed on genuine and substantial grounds as the debt was not legally due and payable at the time the Petition was presented; and (b) the Court in its discretion should not make a winding up order because (it is alleged) the Petitioner unlawfully confiscated stock belonging to a subsidiary of the Company, which then led to the Petition being presented. As part of this, the Company says that the subsidiary has a cross-claim against the Petitioner which equals or exceeds the petition debt.

In opposition to the Petition, the Company relies upon two witness statements of its director Andrew Chesney dated 6 October 2024 and 8 January 2025. In support of the Petition, the Petitioner relies upon the witness statement of its director Colm O’Reilly dated 11 December 2024.

At the start of the hearing before me, I refused the Company’s application dated 30 April 2025 for permission to adduce a third witness statement from Mr Chesney dated 28 April 2025 exhibiting what he described as an expert valuation report produced in order to quantify the Company’s cross-claim. I gave my reasons for refusing that application in an oral judgment given at the hearing.

I am grateful to counsel who appeared before me, Mr McCracken for the Petitioner and Mr Boch for the Company, for their assistance at the hearing.