It is ‘increasingly unlikely a buyer will be found’ for an online legal services platform which cost millions to build, administrators have warned after 20 months of trying to salvage money from the defunct business. The administrators also revealed former employees of LawBite are accused of having gone into its dormant website, ransacked some of its intellectual property and set up a similar website.
Lawbit Ltd, the company behind LawBite, an online service which promised to ‘democratise’ legal advice for small businesses, is having its business and assets sold by administrators after falling £5.8m into debt to some 33 creditors.
Administrators William Antony Batty and Hugh Jesseman, of Antony Batty & Company LLP – who were appointed in September 2024 – secured approval from the company’s creditors to market its business and assets for sale on 10 December 2024.
The main hope for recovering funds was the company’s technology assets and business intellectual property, in the form of the firm’s subscription service and platform LawBite, which was established in 2014 by barrister Clive Rich.
LawBite offered four tiers of subscription service to small and medium-sized businesses, to which it provided legal services through a new-model firm, Lawbriefs Ltd, which has been shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. But in a progress update published on Companies House this week, Batty revealed that Axia Valuation Services, which was engaged to find a buyer, had still not received any offers.
‘We and Axia continue to receive expressions of interest, but so far these have not progressed to the point of a formal offer’, Batty said. ‘Axia continues to seek suitable offers, although it appears increasingly unlikely that a buyer will be found.’
Batty did not provide details of Axia’s valuation of the company’s assets, as doing so could influence bids from prospective purchasers, he said.
He added: ‘We have learnt that previous employees of the company have accessed the company’s website and may have used IPR belonging to the company to create a similar website. We are taking legal advice on this matter.’
The administrators have so far received £25,028, being the balance in the company’s accounts and £88.79 of bank interest.
There were no debts due to the company, it had a lease of ‘no value’ in Ladbroke Grove, London, and office furniture and computer equipment worth £500. The joint administrators were not aware of any further realisable assets.
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