The State's corporate law enforcement agency is pursuing 100 companies that have been struck off the register for failing to file annual returns and accounts.

The Director of Corporate Enforcement, Paul Appleby, said yesterday that his office was concerned that directors of insolvent companies were deliberately allowing their businesses to be struck off the register of companies to avoid going into liquidation.

Companies are generally struck off for failing to file annual returns. Once they are struck off, they lose the benefit of limited liability, but in theory contracts and other obligations can still be enforced against them.

However, Mr Appleby explained yesterday that in the past, insolvent companies have allowed themselves to be struck off and simply "gone away" instead of winding up and going into liquidation.

"They have used it as a way of avoiding giving creditors access to their assets," he said. Mr Appleby added that company directors and their professional advisers did this because there was "no sanction on people's radar".

However, last year for the first time, his office had a director who failed to file annual returns for his company disqualified. This means he is banned from acting as a company director again.

The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) took the action in the High Court. Mr Appleby explained that it was a test case, and had established the procedures and precedent for such actions in the future.

Yesterday, Mr Appleby said that 100 directors of struck-off companies were set to receive correspondence from his office. He is attempting to establish whether or not the firms are insolvent and are attempting to avoid dealing with their creditors.

He said that as a result of last year's case, his office now had the legal ammunition it needed to sanction these directors where necessary. "That has already had an impact, and a sizeable impact, amongst professional advisers," he said. "We want to do more and we have to do more."

Mr Appleby said that a number of insolvent and struck-off companies pursued by his office had gone to the courts to get themselves reinstated to the register, and had then gone into liquidation in the normal way.

The ODCE's report for 2004 shows that it won 66 convictions for company law offences during the year, compared with 43 in 2003.

The corporate watchdog had another breakthrough in the shape of the first successful convictions for fraudulent trading and acting as a director while restricted and in breach of the statutory conditions.

When someone is restricted, they cannot act as a director unless the company has a minimum in called-up share capital of €63,500, or €317,435 in the case of a public company. Failing to comply with this results in disqualification.

The ODCE is pursuing 10 more restricted individuals who are also believed to have broken these conditions.

In all three individuals were banned from acting as directors during the year. A further 217 were restricted, 200 of them as a result of the work of liquidators and the ODCE.

The office is seeking the names of 1,000 individuals convicted by the courts of fraud and other criminal offences that automatically result in disqualification.

Mr Appleby yesterday repeated a warning that his office intended to make greater use of the sanction of disqualification in the future.

"Having secured three disqualifications last year, we are hoping to increase that figure substantially in 2005," he said.