High Court bid fails to save Carlow company

A bid by an examiner to mount a rescue scheme for Carlow company Whitelite Automation Ltd and 29 of its employees has failed, the High Court heard yesterday.

Barrister Eithne Corry told Mr Justice Bernard Barton that a potential investor had withdrawn its interest in the company and the examiner, Neil Hughes, of Hughes Blake, was seeking to have the company put into liquidation.

Ms Corry said the 100-day court protection of the company against its creditors ended yesterday and Mr Hughes considered the best interests of creditors would be served by Whitelite being wound up and its assets being sold off.

Ross Gorman, counsel for the company which designed and built control panels for the power industry, told the court the firm was supporting Mr Hughes’ application.

Mr Hughes, who was appointed joint liquidator with Joseph Walsh, said in an affidavit the main reason for the withdrawal of interest by the proposed confidential investor was due to external factors, most notably the collapse in the price of oil and the current economic crisis in Russia.