Honda face legal action from Super Aguri administrators


By Phil Huff
April 14 2009

Honda are facing legal threats from insolvency experts PKF, after apparently blocking the sale of the defunct Super Aguri team and failing to settle a bill for some £300,000.

Super Aguri was placed into administration last year after four races due to financial difficulties, with the team stating that a breach of contract by the promised sponsor SS United Group Oil & Gas Company was responsible. A team of corporate recovery partners was appointed to seek a buyer for the operation.

The administrators, PKF's Philip Long, Brian Hamblin and Ian Gould, have applied to the courts to protect their fees, amounting to around £300,000 (€333,950/$439,300) for their work as joint administrators to Super Aguri, and vigorously defended their decisions during their time in charge of the ailing business.

Honda were the main creditor, owed around £37m (€41.2m/$54.2m) from total debts of just over £50m (€55.7m/$73.2m). Despite apparently having a buyer lined up for the entire outfit, and having smaller creditors agree to the plan, Honda rejected the plan and appointed liquidators from BDO Stoy Hayward to sell the assets of the business.

Super Aguri was then officially placed into liquidation on 7 July 2008, two months to the day from going in to administration.

"Any insolvency practitioner will say that [administration] was the only route for Super Aguri as there were buyers for it," explained Philip Long, one of three joint administrators from PKF. "Honda didn't want Super Aguri exposed to the marketplace. We are experts in the industry, I know when an administration's an administration. Smaller unsecured creditors voted for our proposals and fees."

It is unclear from where in Honda the decision came. Certainly Super Aguri's team boss Aguri Suzuki was very vocal in criticising Nick Fry, but current Brawn GP boss Ross Brawn, whose team was created after Honda themselves pulled out of F1, defended Fry back in May 2008, saying "What I saw was Nick [Fry] making big efforts at time to keep the project [Super Aguri] alive, beyond any reason for us, it was because of the connection of Aguri with Honda. Nick did a lot of work to try and find a viable solution for Aguri."

Nick Fry himself was adamant that his team wanted Super Aguri to survive. "The reality is for Aguri, we were looking for a serious long-term partner and that takes very substantial resources. The one that we hoped would come to fruition was the Magma/DIC deal, but unfortunately that didn't."

With legal action now ongoing to recover the fees that PKF say are due, neither side were willing to comment further.

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