Revival can leave a bitter taste

It's always nice to see an industrious light burning again in the office window of a failed business. After all, there's no point well-situated premises standing empty as liquidators and creditors pick through the remains of someone's dream.

But does the same joy gladden the City when the faces in the window are the same bastions of business who bowed to the liquidators only weeks before and who now revive their fortunes under the noses of creditors and workers who lost out.

It happens often, we know, but does that make it more palatable? Any more ethical? Any less seedy? The sight of new money going back into the same offices where the same people operate the same computers, clean up the same databases, drive the same cars and answer the same telephones – before the old company has even been properly liquidated – leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

There will always be companies that grow too fast and burn themselves out. And although it is heartening to see a company rise from its own ashes, it is dispiriting to see them rise from the ashes of those they have left behind – the investors and workers left jobless. It would be better if the dreams of those who survive don't thrive on the nightmares of others.

One day there might be a new generation of corporate lawyers that can act on the moral decay inside the three-piece suit and put the white collar criminal where that window light don't shine.