How (not) to defend against winding up petitions

In Enfield Highway Development Limited v Park Estate Holdings Limited [2025] EWHC 29 (Ch) the court considered an application by Enfield to restrain Park Estate from presenting a petition to wind up Enfield on the basis of a debt of £54,180 relating to unpaid commission payments. 

In making the application, Enfield asserted that the debt was disputed on substantial grounds.

It's generally the position that, when considering a disputed petition, the court won't undertake a detailed interrogation of the evidence on which the applicant asserts that a debt is disputed. However, HHJ Cawson KC applied the principles set out by Norris J in Angel Group v British Gas Trading Ltd [2012] EWHC 2702. Noting that:

“in an appropriate case, the court may be required to consider the evidence in detail, and be alert to the fact that the applicant company may simply be raising, in its evidence, a cloud of objections which lack credibility and/or have no substance, such that the dispute sought to be raised has no real or rational prospect of success.”

In considering the evidence asserted by the applicant in detail, HHJ Cawson KC noted that “the evidence in support of the application lacks credibility and substance, and fails to disclose and defence or cross-claim that has any reasonable prospect of success.”

While the threshold for demonstrating that a debt is disputed on substantial grounds is “not a particularly high one,” applicants shouldn't take it for granted that their application to restrain a creditor from presenting a winding up petition will be waved through the courts. There must be a genuine basis for the dispute.

On the facts, Enfield’s application to restrain Park Estate was dismissed.

Enfield Highway Development Ltd v Park Estate Holdings Ltd [2025] EWHC 29 (Ch)

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