Solar panel supplier wound up after claiming labour costs were three times its budget

Kampai Solar Ireland Limited was established to construct a solar power plant in Dublin but the project encountered considerable issues, including labour costs that were three times what was budgeted, the court heard.

On Monday, Mr Justice Brian Cregan said it was appropriate for Kampai Solar to be wound up, with John Healy, of Kirby Healy Chartered Accountants and Insolvency Practitioners, appointed as the liquidator.

The judge had been told the company was balance-sheet and cash-flow insolvent and unable to pay its debts.

In its petition for its winding up, the company said it ran into obstacles in July 2022, with its Spanish staff having to undergo certain safety and manual handling accreditation qualifications in Ireland. It said there were no teachers available to deal with the accreditation, due to the pandemic, so it had to engage recruiter CPL Solutions Limited to secure Irish staff.

This unexpected requirement resulted in very high unanticipated costs at an early stage of trading, the company said.

Most of the Irish workers were not specialised in this sector and did not have the expertise needed, the company claimed.

Kampai Solar claimed many of the Irish contracted workers “quite simply did not want to work” and some would come in for just two or three days before disappearing. The company’s directors found it “quite extraordinary” that there were so many days when, the firm claims, these workers left at lunchtime without notifying their manager.

Kampai Solar said it later subcontracted workers from experienced Spanish companies but this brought the project “far over budget projections”. The company was “quite unprepared” for the scarcity of Dublin accommodation and had to rely on very expensive Airbnb rentals for its Spanish workforce, it said.

Kampai Solar said a client deducted significant sums from agreed prices as the work was not completed on time.

The company intended to look for other Irish projects but none materialised.

CPL Solutions, as the main creditor, brought High Court proceedings against Kampai Solar last April seeking payment of €491,000 which the company cannot discharge, the petition states.

Ivan Matoses Pareja, with an address in Valencia, Spain, was the sole shareholder of the company. He and his co-director, Vincente Mascaraque, with a “heavy heart” determined that a petition for the firm’s winding up should be presented to the court.