Companies Act 1948

218 Jurisdiction to wind up companies registered in England.

(1) The High Court shall have jurisdiction to wind up any company registered in England.

(2) In the case of a company whose registered office is situate within the jurisdiction of the Chancery Court of the County Palatine of Lancaster or the Chancery Court of the County Palatine of Durham, the palatine court shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the High Court to wind up the company.

(3) Where the amount of the share capital of a company paid up or credited as paid up does not exceed ten thousand pounds, the county court of the district in which the registered office of the company is situate shall, subject to the provisions of this section, have concurrent jurisdiction with the High Court to wind up the company.

(4) Where a company is formed for working mines within the stannaries and is not shown to be working mines beyond the limits of the stannaries or to be engaged in any other undertaking beyond those limits, or to have entered into a contract for such working or undertaking, the court exercising the stannaries jurisdiction shall, whatever may-be the amount of the capital of the Company and wherever the registered office of the company is situate, have concurrent jurisdiction with the High Court to wind up the company.

(5) The Lord Chancellor may by order made by statutory instrument exclude a county court from having jurisdiction under this Act, and for the purposes of that jurisdiction may attach its district, or any part thereof, to any other county court, and may by statutory instrument revoke or vary any such order.

In exercising his powers under this section, the Lord Chancellor shall provide that a county court shall not have jurisdiction under this Act unless it has for the time being jurisdiction in bankruptcy.

An order made under this provision shall not affect any jurisdiction or powers vested in any county court under or by virtue of the [59 & 60 Vict. c. 45.] Stannaries Court (Abolition) Act, 1896.

(6) Every court in England having jurisdiction under this Act to wind up a company shall for the purposes of that jurisdiction have all the powers of the High Court, and every prescribed officer of the court shall perform any duties which an officer of the High Court may discharge by order of the judge thereof or otherwise in relation to the winding up of a company.

(7) Nothing in this section shall invalidate a proceeding by reason of its being taken in a wrong court.

(8) For the purposes of this section, the expression “registered office ” means the place which has longest been the registered office of the company during the six months immediately preceding the presentation of the petition for winding up.