I agree with previous posts regarding companies using examinership to stall the inevitable liquidation and that the process is sometimes abused.
The problem with examiners fees in Ireland is that the examiner is often under little/no pressure to be sensible about the time they spend working on the company or the staff that they appoint to look after certain issues and this is why the costs are so high!
Judges are very quick to highlight to Examiners or any practitioners in Court if their work is shoddy. I have attended Court where Judges have critised practitioners in respect of delays etc.
As was the case with the most recent high profile examination application, the Judge did queriy the Independent Accoutant's report which was prepared by the Company's own accountants and therefore may have lacked actual independence.
For a company to present a petition to Court applying for an examiner to be appointed, the following costs will be incurred;
-An independent accountant who will prepares an independent accountants report of the Company. Depending on the size of the company, the min cost for this is 10k-12k.
-A petition must then be prepared detailing the reasons for the failure of the company, back ground, history etc, future prospects, reasons why an examination is in the best interests of the company.A legal firm would prepare this with the assistance of the company. This would then be reviewed by counsel. Legal costs (excluding counsel costs), would be in the range of 10k-15k.
-In Court, Counsel will address the Judge in the application for the appointment of an examiner. Counsel costs for this exercise only would be around 2.5k-5.k.
Once the examiner is appointed on an interim basis, he must report back to the Court usually within 14 days, at which point the examiner's appointment would be confirmed further legal costs would be incurred.
On the assumption the examiners appointment is confirmed, regular court visits are required.
Overall, the costs of an examination on a medium sized company with a turnover of €5m-€7m could be as follows;
Examiner costs- €100k-€150k
Examiner's legal costs- €40k-€70k
Counsel costs- €15-€18k
This is excluding the costs to the petitioner to bring forward to petition to court for an examiner to be appointed.
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