Former directors of Thomas Cook, one of Britain’s biggest travel companies, are to be formally cleared of wrongdoing by the government’s bankruptcy watchdog after a probe lasting more than two years.
Sky News has learnt that the Insolvency Service has concluded its investigation into the collapse of Thomas Cook, which was forced into compulsory liquidation in September 2019 after the failure of last-ditch rescue talks.
Full details of the Insolvency Service’s conclusions were unclear on Wednesday, but one source close to the process said it had decided there was no basis for further action against the tour operator’s bosses.
The development comes just under nine months before a statutory three-year deadline for the watchdog to complete its inquiry.
In a letter to the Insolvency Service on the day of Thomas Cook’s collapse, Andrea Leadsom, the then business secretary, urged it to treat the inquiry as a priority, “given the significance of this case and its implications for thousands of customers and employees”
“I ask that the investigation by the Official Receiver looks, not only at the conduct of directors immediately prior to and at insolvency, but also at whether any action by directors has caused detriment to creditors or to the pension schemes,” she wrote.
It was unclear on Wednesday whether the inquiry’s scrutiny of Thomas Cook’s former directors, which examined issues such as whether the company had traded while insolvent or issued misleading financial statements, had raised any meaningful concerns.
The collapse of Thomas Cook followed months of frantic talks aimed at raising hundreds of millions of pounds of funding to keep it afloat.
Its liquidation triggered thousands of job losses and a huge repatriation effort led by the Civil Aviation Authority which was the largest…
Source : skynews
