Active companies with date of cessation

We’re seeing a significant number of companies with a date of cessation and a status of ‘active’ (numbering in the thousands). An example is company number 08112846. Looking at the filings for this record it appears as if there was a “Application for administrative restoration to the Register” several years ago. Could this be bad underlying data, for example where the end date was not clear on restoration?

Totally agree about this issue and the substantial number of company records affected…

I think the issues here are

  1. The use of “Active” when there is a Court Order to restore.
  2. Who has responsibility for compliance (no-one is producing the usual Annual Returns and / or Accounts) should there be any such requirements and then for the ultimate re-closure of the restored register entry.

I seem recollect, but cannot evidence, that there used to be a PRIMARY status along the lines of “Restored by Court Order” though I could well be mistaken. We now seem to have “Petition To Restore Dissolved” as a SECONDARY status_detail. Being pedantic “Petition to Restore” is not the same as actually restored and I see little point in having and recording a two step process unless there is a lengthy period for interested parties to resist the petition.

The use of something along the lines of “Restored by Court Order” as the PRIMARY status instead of “Active” would accurately describe the current (or last known) status of these zombie entries and allow their easy isolation by bulk data consumers. Using “Active” is clearly wrong (being imprecise at best) and using “Petition to Restore” can only apply during the time period between a petition being raised and a restoration order being made.

How Companies House eventually shake them off the Register is another matter because I suspect that those who originate or order restorations do not care once this has been done.

@chris_taggart
@frank

As you have stated we have restored these companies and therefore their status has been correctly updated to “active”. As the company was previously dissolved it has a {date_of_cessation} which we continue to output. We believe this provides the consumer with the fullest information possible relating to the company, giving you the flexibility to use the data as you see fit. We understand that this could be confusing and would appreciate in your views as the best approach.

We have analysed the data set and there are around 8,000 companies in this state.

Thanks

@mfairhurst

Thanks for the response.

So is this the only use of date_of_cessation? We’re confused in part by this post, which seems to imply it is the same as dissolution date. Could you spell out the business rules underlying this field? Is it only used for restorations, or are there other uses too? If Active overrides this field, is this true for any (all?) other statuses? What happens if a company is restored more than once?

Thanks

@chris_taggart

The use of the {date_of_cessation} is to provide the date on which the company was dissolved or closed, and not just for those who are subsequently restored. This data item is provided when the final gazette is registered or when we are informed that a registered entity no longer exists. Dependant on the status (dissolved or converted-closed) depends on the terminology to be applied, which can be referenced in the enumeration.

cessation_label_for_status:
‘dissolved’ : “Dissolved on”
‘converted-closed’ : “Closed on”

Therefore: -

  • If a company has a status of dissolved then it was Dissolved on {date_of_cessation}
  • If a company has a status of converted-closed then it was Closed on {date_of_cessation}

The discussion becomes interesting when a dissolved/converted-closed company is then restored and its status becomes active again. We have chosen to leave the date_of_cessation set to the date it was last dissolved/converted-closed as per the reasoning previously described. This does mean that the enumeration is not referable, an issue we need to address!

If the company is dissolved/closed and restored many times (although I’m not sure if this is really possible/likely) then the {date_of_cessation} would show the latest date this event occurred.

This post has generated a healthy discussion internally and we are debating a change to remove the date if the company becomes active again, as we can see the confusion this may cause. Your thoughts would be appreciated as input to the discussion.

Hope this helps

Thanks,

Mark.

You did ask for thoughts, so here goes:

I am not convinced that the change that you are debating is the right way forward.

Having got my head around what is being done currently, I can see the rationale in terms of your register data management. It also works in terms of consumers that import data for re-use, especially as this post has substantially clarified your business rules.

My concerns are

  1. If you remove the date subsequent to the event then there will be no “flag” in the data as data - if viewed as a row in a table we will simply see “Active” although with compliance dates that overdue and a burrow into the Filings would be needed to establish the true position - this is sort of where chris_taggart started from.
  2. When the consumer is an end user, rather than a “data-nerd”, using the dataset directly or through a third-party is going to see and, probably be confused by, “Active” plus a set of overdue compliance flags especially if there is no Insolvency tab (see 05611914).

I would recommend having a clear status (Active - Restored by Court Order) on the front page for all to see and consume (or probably avoid) as appropriate. The date_of_cessation should remain in the dataset for users consuming the data as data and they too would have a clear-cut status.

Thanks for the explanation. For what it’s worth, I think the overloading of the date_of_cessation field is not a good idea, not least because such a use introduces ambiguity into a field which should be very clear. Most people (even techies) would read a value in the date_of_cessation as meaning the company has ceased. Clearly this is a problem when the status is Active (not least for the company concerned), but also when the company statement is liquidation, receivership etc, at best causing confusion as to the meaning in this context. The fact that enumerations break is perhaps also a code smell to indicate there’s something wrong here.

Would suggest either moving previous dissolution date to a new field, or losing it completely (it could be inferred from the fillings), or even better do what we’ve seen in some other similar situations and have an array of statuses, each with the start and end date and status in that period.

Hope this helps
Chris

The last part of the last post - “an array of statuses” - fits very neatly with what I was suggesting above.

All it needs is an appropriate additional status added to your current drop-down list. Start and end dates could be a nice to have item (like previous names) although I would have to work out how to add value by using the data.

Is there going to be an outcome from your debate about this topic?

This issue is unresolved - or at least, if a decision was made, it is not posted here. Our view is that the date_of_cessation field should be null unless the company is in a dissolved or closed state. For those that are restored, the field should be null. We support the proposal not to discard the history, so that means, for those companies with 1 or more restorations, you need a table of past cessation and restoration dates . The two fields in each row of the table would be:

ceased_on:
restored_on:

If a company was restored more than once, there will be multiple rows in that table (an array in JSON). That way, it is possible to know at which points in time a company was legally in existence and able to trade.

Some care and detailed research will be needed to accurately reflect “legally …able to trade” for those entities restored by a court where the order may well prohibit all normal trading activity. These “active zombies” are somewhat prone to multiple restorations over time; the individual restorations may (but may not) have trading constraints. Either way the restored entities are predominantly “zombie” in that the restoration purpose is, or was, solely for a legal action.

Many of these “zombie” entities tend to remain on the register for extended periods either because the legal action is protracted or because the law firm that instigated the restoration has not honoured their obligation to notify the Registrar when their proposed litigation is completed or abandoned.

Agreed. Delete “able to trade”. At least “able to be sued”. Anyway, the general issue of how this is recorded is unresolved after more than 1 year. There are several thousand companies which appear “active” but have the latest date_of_cessation in their API response.

I hope that UKCH will respond to this, but I sense that this forum (apart from the bulk data request thread) is not actively managed. I have made a number of posts in the last few months to which no response appeared.