The Secretary of State for Business & Trade v Alexander David Greensill [2026] EWHC 639 (Ch)

Carly Sandbach and Isabel Petrie appear for the Secretary of State in The Secretary of State for Business & Trade v Alexander David Greensill [2026] EWHC 639 (Ch)

The Secretary of State has successfully resisted a further interlocutory application by Mr Greensill seeking to prevent the Directors Disqualification claim against him from continuing to trial. This morning Mr Justice Trower handed down judgment dismissing a strike out application brought by Mr Greensill. This follows an unsuccessful application by Mr Greensill to stay part of the proceedings in May 2025 ([2025] EWHC 1380 (Ch)).

Mr Greensill’s strike out application was based on three broad arguments, all of which were dismissed by the Judge:

1. He argued that the Secretary of State was required to (and failed to) prove that the conduct alleged to make him unfit to be concerned in the management of a company was also responsible for the causes of the relevant company becoming insolvent. The Judge held that the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (CDDA 1986) contained no such jurisdictional threshold;
   
   
2. He argued that the decision by the Secretary of State to commence proceedings under s.6 CDDA 1986 was unlawful for want of what he described as “connectivity” between the misconduct of the defendant and the insolvency of the company. This was rejected for similar reasons.
   
   
3. He also argued that the Secretary of State failed to conduct a fair investigation of at least some of the matters which are said to determine Mr Greensill’s unfitness, such that Mr Greensill could not have a fair trial. The Judge held that Mr Greensill had not established that the process adopted by the Secretary of State in preparing the case for trial was unfair and concluded that his application “falls well short of establishing anything approaching the type of abuse of process which might justify the striking out of the claim.”
   

The judgment contains a detailed analysis of the operation of s.6 (and other parts) of the CDDA 1986 and is likely to be of interest to all practitioners in the Directors Disqualification field.

The matter now proceeds to trial, fixed for a six-week hearing starting in early June 2026. Carly Sandbach, Isabel Petrie and Chris de Beneducci act for the Secretary of State, led by David Mohyuddin KC.

To read the full judgment click here.