[en] The gravitational collapse of a spherical conducting shell subject to the repulsive Casimir force is considered. The question of whether the Casimir effect can prevent the collapse of the shell down to zero radius is raised with particular reference to the previous work on this topic done by Brevik and Kolbenstvedt. In contrast to this earlier treatment, the simplest consistent model exhibits features similar to the charged-shell case. In such a model, the Casimir force is unable to arrest the collapse if the shell's mass exceeds a microscopic value