{"id":14892,"date":"2026-10-23T11:09:54","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T11:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/?p=14892"},"modified":"2026-10-23T11:10:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T11:10:00","slug":"when-do-workers-get-their-wages-from-failed-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/when-do-workers-get-their-wages-from-failed-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"When do workers get their wages from failed companies?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Where are employees in the list of creditors of a firm that’s bankrupt or in administration?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I posted to the branch blog https:\/\/www.gmblcgx58.org.uk\/if-my-employer-goes-bust\/<\/a> which briefly says that,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The order<\/a> in which an insolvent company\u2019s assets is distributed is as follows, fixed charge lenders i.e. mortgage loans, liquidators expenses and fees, then preferred creditors (such as employees and HMRC).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is dated 2022, the legislation has not changed and so I looked it up again and found the following commentaries from some law firms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The law is the Insolvency Act 1986<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. https:\/\/www.bridgenewland.co.uk\/liquidation-who-gets-paid-first\/<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. https:\/\/www.citizensadvice.org.uk\/work\/pay\/getting-paid-if-your-employer-goes-out-of-business-or-disappears\/<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. https:\/\/www.begbies-traynorgroup.com\/articles\/insolvency\/who-gets-paid-first-when-a-company-goes-into-liquidation<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The language in these is quite obscure, but employees are unsecured creditors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. UK Company insolvency FAQs<\/a> by the House of Commons Library 2026<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. I did a google search, “what is the UK law governing the order of claim against a failed company” and got an AI perspectives reply<\/a>, If accurate, it’s very clear. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. I am also curious about how Directors might avoid the circumstances of a failure by starting again. This is called “Abusive Phoenixing”, and the key enforcement body is the Insolvency service<\/a> which runs a “Redundancy Payments Service<\/a>“. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. An article, insolvency service targets phoenix directors: what the new crackdown means for fraud victims<\/a> from a law company called VWV.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Where are employees in the list of creditors of a firm that’s bankrupt or in administration?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[140],"tags":[1241,2302,141],"class_list":["post-14892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-employee-protection","tag-insolvency","tag-politics-2"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@davelevy_eu\/117489912801014880","error":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/money-jakubzerdzicki-WfhgD_n9aIQ-unsplash-w1080.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14894,"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14892\/revisions\/14894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}