Companies House reports 23 director disqualifications

Companies House reports that 23 directors were disqualified following filing-offence convictions between 1 January and 30 June 2026, an unadjusted count in its enforcement release. Their separate disqualification periods add up to 70 years, but that is not a sentence imposed on one person.

The release gives no equivalent count for the preceding six months and no revision to an earlier figure. It therefore cannot establish whether disqualifications increased or decreased. The individual periods ranged from six months to five years, according to Companies House; the aggregate does not show their distribution or the harm prevented.

The fines need a further explanation. Companies House says courts fined the disqualified directors £17,810 in total, including £15,600 for accounts offences and £2,200 for confirmation-statement offences. We checked the arithmetic: the listed components add to £17,800, £10 less than the stated total. The word including leaves open the possibility of another component; Companies House should say whether one has been omitted or a figure is wrong.

The release also reports that 360 directors of 332 companies were convicted of filing offences between 1 January and 31 March 2026. That is a different measure over a shorter period. Companies House does not say how many of the directors disqualified in the first half were among those convicted in the first quarter, so dividing one count by the other would not produce a meaningful disqualification rate.

For the first quarter, Companies House lists 355 accounts-offence convictions and 157 confirmation-statement convictions. Together they exceed the number of directors convicted, but the release does not explain the overlap or counting method. The agency should publish the number of people covered by both categories and say how multiple offences by one director are counted.

Companies House says its enforcement is proportionate and risk-based; its published policy says action should reflect the seriousness of a breach and the likelihood of harm. The release names neither the directors nor their companies or courts, and gives no case details against which to test selection, seriousness or consistency. The agency should provide the relevant orders and explain what alternatives were considered.

There is newer context than the annual tables linked in the release: Companies House published management information for April 2025 to March 2026 on 27 August 2026. Those tables cover prosecutions and disqualifications, but annual totals are not a substitute for matching earlier quarterly and half-year counts. Companies House should provide those comparisons, the number of directors in default, and the overlap between the conviction and disqualification groups before a trend or enforcement rate is claimed.

Reliable filings can benefit creditors, suppliers and compliant firms; directors convicted face personal fines and, in the reported cases, restrictions on acting as directors. Companies House was awarded £31,075 in costs in the first-quarter cases, but its release does not say how much was recovered.