LEGAL proceedings to disqualify directors of the collapsed Christmas hamper firm Farepak have begun at the High Court.

The government's Insolvency Service said it had applied to the court to disqualify all nine former directors of Farepak and its parent company.

The nine, including former CBI boss Sir Clive Thompson and Blacks leisure chief executive Neil Gillis, will fight the action.

Farepak, which ran a Christmas savings scheme, collapsed in 2006 leaving the average customer £400 out of pocket.

It had more than 100,000 customers – hundreds from Swindon – who signed up to spread the cost of Christmas across the year.

The company was based at an industrial unit on Westmead Drive.

Business minister Edward Davey said: “Cases like Farepak are often complex and complicated so take time – but we can confirm that High Court proceedings seeking disqualification orders have now started.”

A statement from the Insolvency Service said the application to the High Court was made in the public interest on the grounds that “the conduct of each director in relation to the relevant company or companies makes him or her unfit to be a director”.

Farepak was not regulated by the Financial Services Authority and its customers subsequently received only about 17.5p in the pound from a Government-backed response fund set up after the company’s collapse.

Last year they heard they would receive a further 15p in the pound after Farepak’s joint liquidators, BDO Stoy Hayward, announced that an action against the directors of Farepak had been settled for £4m, with no admission of liability by the directors.

An application has been made in the London’s High Court for disqualification orders to be made against the following directors in relation to their conduct as directors of European Home Retail Group and/or its subsidiary Farepak Food and Gifts Limited.

They are: Stevan Lloyd Fowler, Neil Duncan Gills, Nicholas Piers Gilodi-Johnson, Stephen Matthew Hicks, Michael Stephen Mackelcan Johns, Paul Munn, Joanne Elizabeth Ponting, William Peter Rollason and Sir Clive Malcolm Thompson.