Ms Tara Keane:

First, it is up to the company at the beginning to decide whether to appoint the particular process adviser. The process adviser has an obligation to inform the company of the likely costs of his or her appointment and the ongoing costs throughout the process. That gives the company the information at the start to make an informed decision as to whether this is suitable for it.

In addition, in circumstances where the court has to approve the process adviser's costs, it will have regard to the additional expenses of the process adviser and the extent to which he or she makes use of the facilities available to him or her via the company and his or her own facilities and whether this incurred an additional cost throughout the process. In conversations with the insolvency practitioners on the Company Law Review Group, the majority of them indicated that in most cases for small and micro companies, anyone who is qualified to act as a liquidator will generally be well equipped to deal with the accounts of these companies.