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But the public announcement was made by Sarah, who was not a director at that time (left 5 days earlier)? Or was there another public announcement?
Actually it's a little more complicated than that. First of all, "ceased trading" is not synonymous with the legal entity's dissolution. The company has not been stricken off. Secondly, the data inside the VM's/containers is on disks on ShardHost owned dedicated servers (sounds like from various comments above - not sure about that, of course). If this is true, turning them back on (assuming the boxes had been turned off) without ShardHost's permission is a risky proposition at best (legally speaking).
The announcement was made by the accountant with their permission.
A company that has ceased trading cannot own any assets, you are correct it is not synonymous with dissolution but in either circumstances it would not be legal to represent the dormant company in any way that would indicate the company is not dormant.
real bottom line, just turn the power on for 8 hours, if CC were not asked to turn it off then it is fair to turn it back on without fear of recourse to ensure the hardware is operating fine.
It is still listed as active at companieshouse so it is still a legal entity. It will remain a company and a legal entity until it is dissolved.
There would be legal problems for ShardHosting if they gave ColoCrossing access to the data on ShardHost's servers without all of ShardHost's clients giving consent to have their data accessed by a 3rd party. There would also be a legal problem if ColoCrossing accessed the data on the servers without their client ShardHost's consent.
I am not saying they should give access to CC, I am simply saying they should turn on the power to the servers, with a complete lack of communication it is fair to do so to verify the servers power up, say an 8 hour test.
if through doing that old customers of shard host manage to backup their data then that is an innocent happy coincidence.
Lets be practical about it?
Whoa! What exactly are you basing this assertion on, if I may ask?
Another interesting assertion (which I disagree with). Could you point me to the relevant UK regulation stating that a serving Director of a dormant company has no rights and obligations any longer? This aside, interesting concept there, that a statement of cessation of business - made by a third, unrelated party, by the way! - makes the company immediately dormant, legally speaking
Good point here, Anthony. However, I'm afraid CC will not risk opening this can of worms. Too much potential downside and very little profit in this for them.
Yes, I also think it is too risky to turn on power. It is unlikely shardhosting will come after them, though, but they may threaten and start legal action even if they will lose in order to get some settlements.
After all, this is the company which preferred to turn off the servers instead of leaving them expire, they might fight among themselves and "since I cant keep it let it burn" while CC will be caught in the middle.
I cant see any fault for jon if he does nothing. I agree he does not have to do it, he might be somewhat morally obligated, but with the risks of legal action looming, he should not do it.
I know I wouldnt.
Yep no trading rights or rights to use the company connected with trade, a person MUST know he is dealing with for anything to be legal, you cannot flip in and out of a dormant company as it suites.
I am basing the first part from a judge on a case I won years ago who cited that and ultimately lead to me winning the entire case.
anyway, enough with the legal crap as this is just going to get very off topic, instead someone needs to sack the hell up and switch the servers on.
As far as I can tell no effort has been made to actually close the company but instead a rogue former employee has made a statement that the company is closing which was following one day later by the changing of the companies address by the actual owner. Now you can choose to see it anyway you want but the way I see it as this is the only conclusion I can draw from the accessible legal facts.
As for the public announcement btw: http://www.shardgaming.com/ <----
Anyway I think it is totally understandable for a DC to restore power if they find servers are off and they don't know why and have had no information that would suggest there is a problem?
AND, it might be possible the rogue former employee also turned off the servers and started drama to kill the company's good name.
It is very possible. Isn't it odd the servers were off one hour after the announcement ?
Sack up CC and turn them on.
Indeed. Interesting that Sarah purportedly resigned as Director a few days prior to doing an about face and sending out the email to clients and making the announcement here on LET - having no authority to do so any longer. And not a peep from the other, still serving, Director. Interesting turn of events, to say the least...
I might be missing something - but other than the user being called @ShardHostSarah over here, has there been any other link to this announcement and her?
From looking through their previous posts, I can only see one 'ShardHost' member here on LET (@ShardHostSarah, used to be @ShardHost: http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/76675/#Comment_76675). Over on VPSBoard, for instance, there is just one user called "ShardHost".
If this is the only attribution to her name, is it not possible that someone else in the company used the account on LET to make the announcement, given that this account is the only one officially attributed to them?
In that case, it is wholly possible Sarah had nothing to do with the emails - and the foul play of "rogue employee" is then not true.
I dont know anything about the company or it's owners - it's just something I noticed as everyone started to note that Sarah resigned days before the announcements.
Good point! I mean as far as Sarah making the announcement goes. Still, some rogue, who had had or gained access, sent out email to clients and made the announcement here.
But could it not still have been Marc (or whatever his name is), and this is all legitimate - but has been handled with extremely poor taste?
If it was not legitimate you would know by now.
Exactly my point. At least, you'd hope so.
Guys, you forget the shutdown of the servers.
Whoever made the announcement KNEW they will be shutdown, either did it later or someone took control of them and blackmailed them, this is a very interesting story, whoever lost a few bucks, at least is watching a good movie.
As for the ones which lost data, that is not related, everyone everywhere must have recent backups of valuable data, period.
I think the word here is expected, rather than knew. As for the shutdown, I thought CC pretty much admitted here to pulling the plug on them...?
Interesting and highly educational, to be sure. Good opportunity to check out how Paypal's Resolution/Claim system works, too
Pretty sure Jon said he knew nothing about it. Conversely, Shardhost implied they were being shutdown by their datacentres.
Indeed and both of those elements CANNOT be true at the same time.
Jon turn the servers on to make sure they are functional, an 8 hour test should be long enough,
I think you're correct that CC were caught unawares, their trying to reach out to Shard for information to re-enable indicates that. But, in this case, I think Anthony is also correct, we don't know what Shard actually said. All we have is a form letter from a guy Philip Lawrence Philip.Lawrence@baverstocks.com purportedly the accountant of Shard claiming that the director has asked them to issue a statement.
Does an accountant have any authority to do such a thing? If the company is in such a state, shouldn't all this be handled by some legal representative? Fishy. If so, then who knows what else? Tin foil hat moment; maybe we turn those servers back on and someone with access steals or erases the data. Such is CC's dilemma.
Never thought that before. Good point.
@Maounique, I have to disagree slightly here ... there is also the issue of custody & control of Customers' data.
I agree: Having Backups is a must
However, the loss/theft/misuse/sale of Customer data that exist on those servers can be a big issue for -the entity formerly known as Shardhost- (and possibly for anyone else who comes into possession of that data), depending on jurisdiction. Think HIPAA or PCI, if there happened to be health data or credit card data, respectively. (I am not implying that data was there, but just another point to consider).
This is another worry for Customers who have/had their data on those servers. (Also remember how Providers always say they can't delete former customer's data from the billing system?)
In the US at least, where people LOVE to sue for any reason, it could be a legal circle-jerk of epic proportions ... IF someone wanted to start the circle ;-)
Cheers
Jon only said that CC had not caused this. This does not imply that CC did not pull the plug (as I suspect they have done, and would do the same in their place!) immediately they were made aware of the unfolding drama and found they have nobody to talk to. Sharon (if it was Sharon), in her letter, said nothing about being shut down, but only that she expected to be shutdown following her communique. At least this is how I read their respective posts here.
Just turn them back on and say it was a bug
You mean a 'bug' crawled/flew upon the power switch and turned it on?
I would offer a refugee deal but their prices were way too low for my taste.
The drama is big.