The owner of a Bedfordshire construction firm has been banned from being a company director until 2037 for fraudulently claiming Covid loans.
Nick Addison, a 50-year old director of Addison’s Quality Ltd, overstated his firm’s turnover by more than three times to claim £50,000, according to an investigation by the Insolvency Service. He then transferred some of the funds into a personal bank account.
At London’s High Court on 23 July, Addison, of Fieldfare in Leighton Buzzard, was disqualified until 2037 and ordered to pay costs of £5,158.
Insolvency Service chief investigator Kevin Read said Addison provided “false information” to the bank to secure the loans.
“Addison then displayed further contempt for the Bounce Back Loan Scheme by transferring funds out of his company’s account and into his own personal bank account,” he added.
“The 13-year disqualification order reflects the serious nature of this misconduct and means Addison cannot be involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company in the UK until 2037.”
Addison applied for a Covid Bounce Back Loan in May 2020, claiming that his business had a turnover of £250,000. At the time, businesses were entitled to a single loan with a value of up to a quarter of their turnover, with a maximum loan of £50,000.
Instead, his 2019 turnover was £62,000, meaning it was eligible for a maximum loan of £15,500.
Within days, Addison paid some of the £50,000 loan into his personal bank account – and by by September 2020 had transferred £48,000 from his business to his personal account.
His firm then went into liquidation in March 2021.
The Insolvency Service said he provided no evidence that the loan was used to benefit his business, and did not respond to any requests for further information during the investigation.
The case is the latest from a national initiative led by HMRC and the National Investigation Service, which is auditing claims made during lockdown.
Last year, Construction News revealed that nearly 5,000 loans were suspected of being fraudulent. Last week, a father and son were given suspended jail sentences after they admitted making fraudulent claims for business-support loans during the pandemic.
