Prohibited-name notice filed after O'Briens Bottle Shop enters voluntary liquidation

Ian McCulloch and Emma Mifsud of Opus Restructuring LLP were appointed joint liquidators of O'Briens Bottle Shop Limited on 22 April 2026, after the licensed premises operator wound up voluntarily following less than six years of trading. A prohibited-name notice published in the Gazette on 21 May 2026 indicates that a connected party intends to carry on business under a name the same as, or sufficiently similar to, that of the liquidated company.

Section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986 bars any director of a company that has gone into insolvent liquidation from being involved, for five years, in another company using the same or a similar name, unless one of the statutory exceptions applies. Filing a prohibited-name notice is one route to satisfying those exceptions, giving the connected party a formal basis on which to continue trading.

The company

O'Briens Bottle Shop Limited was incorporated on 20 June 2020 and operated under SIC code 56302, the classification for licensed premises. The company's registered address now sits care of Opus Restructuring LLP at 1 Radian Court, Knowlhill, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, MK5 8PJ. Its most recent accounts, made up to 30 June 2024, were filed as micro-entity accounts, pointing to a small-scale operation. Web data suggests the company employed between one and ten people.

The two directors at the time of liquidation were Elena O'Brien, appointed on 3 July 2021, and Luke Arthur Jack O'Brien, who had held the role since incorporation on 20 June 2020. Both are resident in England.

The liquidators

McCulloch holds IP number 18532 and Mifsud holds IP number 21070, both licensed insolvency practitioners at Opus Restructuring LLP. The firm's address for correspondence in connection with this matter is Mount Suite, Rational House, 32 Winckley Square, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 3JJ. Joint liquidators are two or more insolvency practitioners appointed to act together; either can generally act alone unless the appointment specifies otherwise.

No secured charges are registered against the company, so there are no secured creditors with a charge-backed claim over its assets.

For creditors and customers

Voluntary liquidation is a formal insolvency process in which the company's assets are realised and distributed to creditors in the order set out by law. Once liquidators are appointed, they take control of the process and issue statutory communications to known creditors in due course, with correspondence conducted through the firm's address on the notice.

Creditors wishing to evidence what they are owed do so by submitting a proof of debt, the formal claim form used in the liquidation process to record the amount outstanding.

Customers holding paid-but-undelivered orders or deposits rank as unsecured creditors, sitting behind any preferential claims when assets are distributed. Unsecured creditors are those whose debts are not backed by a charge over the company's assets.

Employee claims for unpaid wages, notice pay and redundancy are treated as preferential or unsecured depending on their nature. The Redundancy Payments Service, operated by the Insolvency Service, handles statutory redundancy and related payments where an employer cannot meet them.