To be or not to be, that is the question

There are legal loopholes that need examining, writes Sara Driscoll

The game of charades that has been played out over the past few months by system builder Evesham, created a smokescreen of confusion for what was happening behind the scenes.
After much speculation, reported in CRN, a series of events played out last week bore ambiguity, uncertainty and doubt, and will have left creditors and staff with a bad taste.
First, the firm issued a statement regarding a restructure, however, it said: " Our customers will continue to receive support from the same Evesham staff." Minutes later, another statement was issued, boasting Evesham had secured $22m of funding.
Astonishingly, it was more than 48 hours later when the firm issued another statement admitting it had in fact gone into administration. Blaming the defunct Home Computing Initiative, chairman Richard Austin, said the firm had lost £30m when the government scheme was axed. It also lost more than half of its 280 or so staff, which begs the question how can customers expect to be served by the same staff as the earlier statement claimed?
The firm also stated it would now be known as GeeMore Technology, but would trade under the brand name of Evesham Technology.
So what has really changed? Evesham is not the first business to close and begin trading immediately through a new company while keeping its old brand name – Watford Electronics, Time and Comtek Network Systems have all done similar.
While adopting this strategy is not in itself reprehensible, how much debt, redundancy and confusion is left in the wake of a company that adopts this survival method?
More importantly what legislation is there to stop a carnival of resellers (or any other industry) from trading, going under, packing up and moving on to a new place in the same town? Whether a legal loophole or gargantuan legislative black hole, this apparent get-out clause needs to be re-examined.