Former Farepak Foods director William Rollason has failed in his bid to have charges brought by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) struck out and will now face a disciplinary tribunal.

Rollason, a member of the ICAEW, was asking for the complaint against him to be dismissed on the grounds of abuse of process but after two days of legal hearings the tribunal decided against him.

The FRC's formal complaint against Rollason, who was chief executive of European Home Retail (EHR) and a director at Farepak, relates to the collapse of Farepak shortly before Christmas 2006 which left over 100,000 Christmas club customers out of pocket.

Proceedings against Rollason and other EHR and Farepak executives to disqualify them as company directors were dropped when the case came to court in 2012, and Rollason had argued at the FRC tribunal that going over this information amounted to an abuse of process.

However, the FRC argued that the disciplinary tribunal will be looking at different issues, including Rollason's failure to meet the standards reasonably to be expected of ICAEW members.

The complaint concerns communications sent by Rollason to fellow directors in February 2006 which the FRC alleges he knew to be misleading and which did not reflect the financial position of the company.

The FRC has also accused Rollason of 'signing the financial statements of Farepak for the period ended 28 April 2005, which he knew were misleading in that it was stated that EHR would continue to support Farepak to enable it to meet its liabilities as they fell due and accordingly the going concern basis had been adopted for the financial statements'.

Rollason is the only accountant to face a full disciplinary tribunal hearing and the FRC has dropped charges it initially brought against two other accountants.