Aidan Clifford, the advisory services manager of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Ireland has said that the gift vouchers given by HMV to the customers remain a legal debt of the company.

The accountancy firm said that even as an administrator has been appointed for the company in the UK and a receiver has been assigned in Ireland, the vouchers remain a legal obligation of the company towards its customers. ACCA also pointed out that the company was wrong in not accepting gift vouchers in Ireland after the appointment of an administrator in the UK and before the appointment of a receiver in Ireland.

The Director of Corporate Enforcement has said that the Director of Corporate Enforcement should look at the matter carefully. The company has three options now, receivership, examinership or liquidation, according to Mr Clifford.

"Gift vouchers are treated differently under the three procedures. In an examinership, you would expect the gift vouchers to be legally written off and be worthless after the procedure, but this is up to a judge to confirm. In a receivership the gift vouchers still have full value and cannot be legally written down in value," he said.

He added that in liquidation, the gift vouchers are treated as unsecured creditors that are to be legally written off by the liquidator.