Thanks to the powers of this list, I've had some excellent advice and help from two members of the Crisis Management Team: Alex Ritchie (Business Archives Advisor, TNA) and Richard Wiltshire (Senior Archivist Business & Community Archives, LMA). Here's a summary of our conversations.
Administrators/receivers must keep the records of the administrative receivership for 6 years once the winding up process has been completed.
What seems to be typical is that administrators contact archives and give a limited window for archivists to assess the documents and make a selection of what they want to keep. Quite often, once that selection has been made, the administration records will no longer be on offer.
If the administrator is a good one, they will keep reasonably detailed lists of the documents which you can look through, and often they will give you physical access to the documents to enable you to make a selection for transfer to your archive.
If no lists exist, or they are poor, then surveying the documents will be the only way of making a selection. It is important to document what you find, so that you can describe accurately what material you wish to take, why you wish to take it, and demonstrate that there is nothing sensitive among the material you wish to take. In our case, we want to document the end result of the administration process and the continuation of certain parts of the business under administration.
If the administrator then wants to withhold any documents, at least you will have a list of them, and you will be able to ask them to put a note on file to contact you when the 6 years is up - or more typically, you will contact them once the 6 years is up! - to discuss the transfer of the withheld documents.
If the administrator is worried about sensitivity of the documents or liability for what is in them, you can consider adding a liability clause to the acquisition agreement. You can also offer to place closure periods on the documents - we have offered a 20 year closure on the pre-administration documents and a longer closure on the post-administration documents, which the administrators are now considering.
If you can involve anyone high up from the company who has a passion for its history to intervene on your behalf, that's also a plus. We've now got a former company director on board who has spoken to the administrators and reiterated the things we've said - which is why the administrator is now considering the option of closure periods.
If you have evidence that other administrators and LLP firms have transferred administration/receivership records to you, use it to show that you can be trusted to look after the documents. If you have a contact in another department of the firm undertaking the administration with whom you've worked on other cases, it's worth asking if they can persuade their colleagues to release the material to you.
Finally, Oliver Morley (Chief Exec, TNA) has recently written to the Insolvency Practitioners Association to try to open up a dialogue with them about the disposal of records of companies in administration.
Jan Hicks
Senior Archivist, MOSI
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