Jun282017
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given its approval to fourth tranche recommendations of NITI Aayog on strategic disinvestment of CPSE (strategic disinvestment of Air India and
Jun282017
On the second day of his disqualification trial , Yingji Li, the director of Mandarin Kitchen Limited, gave an undertaking to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, which prevents him from becoming directly or indirectly involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company for seven years from 30 June 2017.
Mandarin went into liquidation on 22 April 2014 owing £394,267 to creditors.
The Insolvency Service’s investigation concluded that Mr Li caused Mandarin to employ two illegal workers. He also caused the company to fail to submit returns or payments to HMRC in respect of VAT, PAYE and NIC, with at least £191,748 being owed to HMRC at the date of liquidation.
Commenting on the disqualification, Robert Clarke, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said:
The Insolvency Service will work with other government agencies to take robust action against company directors who fail to comply with the law. In this case, Mr Li disregarded both immigration and taxation legislation and has therefore been disqualified for a significant period. He will also have to meet the legal costs of the proceedings against him.
Mandarin Kitchen Limited (CRO No.08421507) was incorporated on 27 February 2013. Mandarin operated eight restaurants in London, its registered office being at 88 Kingsway, London WC2B 6AA.
Mr Li (date of birth 10 November 1988) was the sole formally appointed director between 27 February 2013 and liquidation. Mandarin went into Liquidation on 22 April 2014.
On 9 June 2017 the Secretary of State accepted a Disqualification Undertaking from Mr Li effective from 30 June 2017, for seven years.
A disqualification order has the effect that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot:
Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings. Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of other restrictions.
The Insolvency Service, an executive agency sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), administers the insolvency regime, and aims to deliver and promote a range of investigation and enforcement activities both civil and criminal in nature, to support fair and open markets. We do this by effectively enforcing the statutory company and insolvency regimes, maintaining public confidence in those regimes and reducing the harm caused to victims of fraudulent activity and to the business community, including dealing with the disqualification of directors in corporate failures. Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct, is available (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/insolvency-service).
BEIS’ mission is to build a dynamic and competitive UK economy that works for all, in particular by creating the conditions for business success and promoting an open global economy. The Criminal Investigations and Prosecutions team contributes to this aim by taking action to deter fraud and to regulate the market. They investigate and prosecute a range of offences, primarily relating to personal or company insolvencies.
Media enquiries for this press release – 020 7674 6910 or 020 7596 6187
You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:
Jun282017
28 June 2017 – Investing in the health and survival of the most deprived children and communities provides more value for money than investing in less deprived groups, saving almost twice as many lives for every $1 million spent, according to a new study by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“The evidence is compelling: Investing in the poorest children is not only right in principle, it is also right in practice – saving more lives for every dollar spent,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake in a press release on the study, titled Narrowing the Gaps.
The study backs up an unconventional prediction UNICEF made in 2010: the higher cost of reaching the poorest children would be outweighed by greater results.
“This is critical news for governments working to end all preventable child deaths at a time when every dollar counts,” Mr. Lake said, noting that investing equitably in children’s health also helps break intergenerational cycles of poverty and gives them a better chance of learning more in school and earning more as an adult.
The evidence is compelling: Investing in the poorest children is not only right in principle, it is also right in practice – saving more lives for every dollar spent
The study analysed new data from the 51 countries where around 80 per cent of all newborn and under-five deaths occur. It assessed access to six high-impact maternal, newborn and child health interventions: the use of insecticide-treated bed nets, early initiation of breastfeeding, antenatal care, full vaccination, the presence of a skilled birth attendant during delivery, and seeking care for children with diarrhea, fever or pneumonia.
Findings show that improvements in coverage of life-saving interventions among poor groups helped decrease child mortality in these countries nearly three times faster than among non-poor groups. Also, interventions in poor groups proved 1.8 times more cost-effective in terms of lives saved.
The study also found that since birth rates were higher among the poor than the non-poor, the reduction in the under-five mortality rate in poor communities translated into 4.2 times more lives saved for every million people.
Further, it found that of the 1.1 million lives saved across the 51 countries during the final year studied for each country, nearly 85 per cent were among the poor.
The study lists Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Malawi as some of the countries with high rates of under-five mortality where focus on the most deprived has made a difference for children. Between 1990 and 2015, under-five mortality decreased by half in Afghanistan and by 74 per cent in Bangladesh and Malawi.
The findings come at a critical time, as governments continue their work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which set a target of ending all preventable deaths among newborns and children under the age of five by 2030. Unless progress on reducing child mortality accelerates, by 2030 almost 70 million children will die before reaching their fifth birthday.
The study calls on countries to take practical steps to reduce inequities, including: disaggregating data to identify the children being left behind; investing more in proven interventions to prevent and treat the biggest killers of children; strengthening health systems to make quality care more widely available; innovating to find new ways of reaching the unreached; and monitoring equity gaps using household surveys and national information systems.
Jun282017
The Environment Agency publish surrenders that they issue under the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).
This decision includes the permit, decision document and site condition report evaluation template for:
Jun282017
This follows an investigation by Company Investigations of the Insolvency Service which found that of the 14 companies, only one had ever possessed a consumer credit licence permitting it to operate as a lender. That licence had been revoked in 2013, following a Tribunal finding that Mr Gopee lacked the both the integrity and the competence to operate a consumer credit business.
The unlicensed companies lent to members of the public at high interest rates, secured against the borrowers’ homes and brought numerous court cases to take possession of properties belonging to borrowers who fell behind with payments.
The paperwork provided to customers was confusing and unclear and some were required to sign a declaration waiving their rights under the Consumer Credit Act. This was described as ‘distressing’ by the Court who confirmed that an individual could not waive their rights under that Act.
Mr Gopee’s companies regularly filed false and misleading accounts at Companies House claiming to be dormant when in fact they had substantial active loan books.
Mr Gopee was disqualified as a director on 5 May 2016 for 15 years, the maximum of disqualification available and followed the compulsory liquidation of Barons Finance Limited and subsequent Insolvency Service investigation into the company’s affairs.
In his judgement; Deputy Registrar Prentice found that the companies were involved in “unauthorised lending”, that they were incapable of carrying on business in a “transparent manner” and had engaged in “wholesale abuse of the company accounting system”. He noted that the companies never had any employees other than Mr Gopee despite company letters signed by “Nigel Coombes” and “H Glover, manager for legal services who were Mr Gopee under another name.” Another deliberate confusion that the Deputy Registrar noted was the use of the name Ghana Commercial Bunk Limited “which sounds very like bank.”
Welcoming the Court’s decision, David Hill, a chief investigator with the Insolvency Service, commented:
I am very pleased to see that the Court has called a halt to the unscrupulous activities of these companies. They have pursued hundreds of borrowers for loans that should never have been made.
The companies have shown no regard for the law.
The companies subject to the winding up order are:
The Financial Conduct Authority is currently taking criminal action against Mr Gopee for acting as an unlicensed consumer credit lender.
The director of all the companies is Pauline Muldowney.
All the companies have their registered office at 169 Perry Vale, London SE23 2JD.
Euro Business Finance plc was incorporated on 8 March 2002 under company number 04390102.
Reddy Corporation Limited was incorporated on 13th January 1997 under company number 3301446.
Ghana Commercial Finance Limited was incorporated on 17 December 2006 under company number 04999062.
Barons Bridging Finance 1 Limited was incorporated on 1st December 2009 under company number 7091814.
Barons Finance 1 Limited was incorporated on 31 March 2005 under company number 05409905.
Moneylink Finance Limited was incorporated on 28 July 1998 under company number 03605382.
Agni Investments Limited was incorporated on 3 September 2012 under company number 08199869.
Ghana Commercial Investment Ltd was incorporated on 14 April 2010 under company number 07223169. It changed its name from Ghana Commercial Bunk Limited on 10 December 2013.
Pangold Estate Limited was incorporated on 14 April 2010 under company number 07223094.
Pangold Investments Limited was incorporated on 4 September 2006 under company number 05923542.
Speedy Bridging Finance Limited was incorporated on 31 October 2013 under company number 08756228.
Marketing Web Limited was incorporated on 23 December 1998 under company number 03688015.
Agni Estates Ltd was incorporated on 14 February 2014 under company number 08895528.
Euro Asset Management Limited was incorporated on 23 October 2014 under company number 09277841.
The petitions were presented under s124A of the Insolvency Act 1986.
Company Investigations, part of the Insolvency Service, uses powers under the Companies Act 1985 to conduct confidential fact-finding investigations into the activities of live limited companies in the UK on behalf of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Further information about live company investigations is available.
The Insolvency Service, an executive agency sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), administers the insolvency regime, and aims to deliver and promote a range of investigation and enforcement activities both civil and criminal in nature, to support fair and open markets. We do this by effectively enforcing the statutory company and insolvency regimes, maintaining public confidence in those regimes and reducing the harm caused to victims of fraudulent activity and to the business community, including dealing with the disqualification of directors in corporate failures.
BEIS’ mission is to build a dynamic and competitive UK economy that works for all, in particular by creating the conditions for business success and promoting an open global economy. The Criminal Investigations and Prosecutions team contributes to this aim by taking action to deter fraud and to regulate the market. They investigate and prosecute a range of offences, primarily relating to personal or company insolvencies.
The agency also authorises and regulates the insolvency profession, assesses and pays statutory entitlement to redundancy payments when an employer cannot or will not pay employees, provides banking and investment services for bankruptcy and liquidation estate funds and advises ministers and other government departments on insolvency law and practice.
Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct, is available.
Media enquiries for this press release – 020 7674 6910 or 020 7596 6187
You can also follow the Insolvency Service on: