CoL left with £450,000 Halliwells bad debt
The College of Law (CoL) is owed almost half a million pounds by Halliwells relating to unpaid LPC fees for the 2009-10 financial year.
Nigel Savage
The institution, which ran the LPC for Halliwells’ trainees on an exclusive basis, is one of dozens of creditors owed a total of £14.1m by the law firm, which went into administration in July this year.
CoL chief executive Nigel Savage said that the organisation might be left with no choice but to write off the bad debt, which amounts to £448,293.30.
“They owe us [but] because we’re unsecured creditors, we’re further down the list,” he explained.
“The primary thing was to make sure that the students could take the exams and make sure they were placed with firms.”
Savage said that he “had no inkling” of the financial difficulties Halliwells was going through, “except that our debts hadn’t been paid”.
“We gave them time to pay like you would in any other situation,” he added.
The first report to creditors from Halliwells administrators Dermot Power and Shay Bannon of BDO, a copy of which was leaked to The Lawyer, revealed the names of businesses, barristers and expert witnesses owed money by Halliwells.
These range from the HMRC, which is owed £4.3m, to dozens of small businesses such as Pavarottis Sandwich Bar on Threadneedle Street, from which the firm ordered thousands of pounds worth of food up until the day it collapsed (20 September 2010).
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Readers' comments (32)
Anonymous | 1-Oct-2010 12:24 pm
As a CoL student last year, I had to laugh at the comment re: whether the College would so easily let go of the fee of an individual Student. I actually had issues securing funding and for a short while it looked as though I might not be able to sort it, the College basically repeated that I remained liable numerous times and offered no assistance or advice as to alternative solutions.
As it stands I had no idea that Savage was paid such a wedge! Sickens me to think how worried I was about the 10K fees!
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Chris | 5-Oct-2010 8:30 pm
Re Anon 28 Sep 12:33pm, I agree that many University VC's are paid too much, but many universities are involved in important research and tend to equipt their students with more than a pile of green sheets to show for their time there!
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