Director files second prohibited-name notice after Mance Communications insolvent liquidation

Mance Communications Limited entered insolvent liquidation on 25 March 2025, and director James Sinclair Smith has since published a second notice in the Gazette stating his intention to carry on trading under the name Mance Communications UK Ltd.

The notice, published on 18 May 2026, is the second such filing by Sinclair Smith in connection with the Cornwall-based company. A first notice appeared earlier at Gazette reference 4860902, in which Sinclair Smith gave the same intended trading name and listed a principal trading address of 22 Carnaby Street, London W1F 7BD, alongside the company's registered office at Purnells, 5a Kernick Industrial Estate, Penryn, Cornwall, TR10 9EP.

What section 216 requires

Section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986 prohibits a director of a company that has gone into insolvent liquidation from being involved in another company using the same or a sufficiently similar name for five years, unless one of the statutory exceptions applies. One such exception allows a director to give advance public notice of the intention to use a prohibited name by placing a notice in the Gazette. That is the route Sinclair Smith has taken, and the current filing is his second use of it.

Mance Communications Limited was incorporated on 13 October 2020, initially under the name Mance Communications Limited before briefly becoming Six and Seven Marketing Limited from 22 October 2020 until 8 July 2021, when it reverted to its original name. The company's SIC code places it in the public relations and communications consultancy sector. Its last accounts were made up to 30 September 2024 and filed as a micro-entity.

Officers

The directors on record since incorporation are Meritaten Chlois Mance and James Sinclair Smith, both appointed on 13 October 2020 and both resident in England. No secured charges were registered against the company.

Background

The first prohibited-name notice listed a trading name of Mance Comms alongside the intended successor vehicle, Mance Communications UK Ltd. The second notice, the subject of this report, repeats the process from the same registered office address in Penryn. Taken together, the two Gazette notices show that Sinclair Smith is persisting with his intention to continue the business under the new name, having met the procedural requirement of public notification on more than one occasion.

The company's website remained live at mancecommunications.com at the time of the liquidation filing, carrying standard terms and conditions referencing Mance Communications Limited.

For creditors

When a company enters insolvent liquidation, a licensed insolvency practitioner acts as liquidator and takes over responsibility for collecting assets and distributing them to creditors in the order set by law. Creditors wishing to claim submit a proof of debt, the formal claim form evidencing the amount owed, to the liquidator.

Trade suppliers, customers holding undelivered orders or deposits, and most other unsecured creditors rank behind secured and preferential creditors when assets are distributed. Employees with outstanding wage, notice pay or redundancy claims may be able to recover certain amounts through the Redundancy Payments Service, a government body that can meet statutory entitlements where a company cannot.

The moratorium under paragraph 43 of Schedule B1 of the Insolvency Act 1986 applies in administration rather than liquidation, but liquidation itself imposes its own stay on creditor action once the process is under way. Correspondence relating to the liquidation is handled through the appointed liquidator.