Carillion chiefs face legal ban

The move to start legal steps to bar eight former directors of the collapsed Carillion construction giant from top boardroom positions has been welcomed by the Unite union — although the union said this should have happened much sooner.

Last month, on the eve of the third anniversary of Carillion’s collapse, government agency The Insolvency Service said it was seeking to disqualify the directors “in the public interest” from acting as UK company directors.

In January 2018, Carillion, then the UK’s second largest construction firm, folded with £7 billion of liabilities and the loss of thousands of jobs. Sitting on a mountain of debt, the company had nevertheless been working on 420 public sector contracts when it entered liquidation. As Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail pointed out, the firm “had been trading while insolvent for some time before its collapse”.

The legal action has been launched by new business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, with company director disqualification proceedings being issued against eight directors and former directors.

“We would like to see those responsible for the Carillion debacle to be charged and appear in court,” Cartmail said.

She added that while Kwarteng had “injected a much-needed impetus into the Carillion affair”, he nevertheless “needs to cast his net wider to clean up the culture of ‘bandit capitalism’ across the UK corporate environment with a strong system of regulation and enforcement”.