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Directors of online loan brokerage firm disqualified for total of 18 years for failing to deliver up adequate accounts (25 April 2017)

Date: 25/04/2017
Duncan Lewis, Crime Solicitors, Directors of online loan brokerage firm disqualified for total of 18 years for failing to deliver up adequate accounts

The directors of an Internet loan brokerage firm have been disqualified for a total of 18 years, following an Insolvency Service Company Investigations probe into the affairs of the company.

Dutch national Jos Timmer – also known as James Thompson – and Elizabeth Sarah Rowe were directors of More Financial Limited, which was wound up in the public interest by the High Court on 19 August 2013, after the Insolvency Service investigation.

Mr Timmer was banned for 12 years and Ms Rowe for six years.

The Insolvency Service found that Timmer caused and Rowe allowed the company to operate in manner which lacked probity – and failed to maintain or preserve accurate accounting records. Timmer also failed to co-operate with – and actively hindered – the various investigations, said the Insolvency Service.

The winding up of the company in the public interest resulted in assets totalling £499,609 being safeguarded – and also limited the known deficiency to £70,891.

More Financial had acted as a loan broker between consumers and financial institutions, charging a fee to individual members of the public. The company had used a long list of trading names, including Century Finance, E Loans 4 U, Heritage Finance and Heritage Financial, Loans Expert and UK Loans Express, among others.

More Financial traded from November 2009, initially through telesales and then solely online from 2011. The company became subject to an investigation as a result of a series of complaints.

A public interest winding up petition was issued on 12 June 2013, with a provisional liquidator being appointed on 13 June 2013 without notice to the company. A winding up order was subsequently made on 19 August 2013, following an unsuccessful application by the directors to discharge the appointment of the provisional liquidator.

Timmer was only formerly appointed as a director for less than two months up 18 January 2010, while Rowe – appointed one week earlier – was the only formerly appointed director thereafter.

The investigations revealed that Timmer – the only shareholder at liquidation – had been in control of company affairs throughout. Rowe confirmed she allowed Timmer to operate the business as he saw fit – and was aware of the modus operandi and purpose of the operation.

The amount received or utilised by the directors during trading – Timmer in particular – has never been fully established because of the inadequacy of his co-operation and the company records, said the Insolvency Service.

The investigation did, however, establish that dividends were declared to Timmer totalling £2,050,000 between 20 February and 9 April 2013, when he was fully aware of the investigation that resulted in the closing down of the company – this figure includes a cash transfer of £1,100,000 to an account he controlled.

The company obtained unauthorised payments from customers of the brokerage fee (£69.50, and sometimes £69.95) – and provided customers’ personal and/or financial data to third parties without authorisation in circumstances where the third parties thereafter used those details to contact the customers directly.

The company also traded in a manner which frustrated its customers’ and third parties’ ability to contact it, to either exercise their cancellation rights and/or obtain a refund of the brokerage fee deducted.

Commenting on the disqualification, Cheryl Lambert, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said:

“The company was wound up in the public interest because of the manner in which it was set up and operated – to extract small amounts of moneys from a significant number of people through duplicitous means.

“In tandem, the mechanisms for complaint and retrieval/reimbursement of moneys were deliberately opaque to the point of obstructing the public.

“Furthermore, during the Insolvency Service investigations Mr Timmer continually obstructed and frustrated the enquiries.

“The nature of the customer base was such that the company was fishing in a pond of vulnerable and financially distressed people – the relatively small amounts being taken from them had a disproportionate impact. The company preyed like a vulture upon those most in need.”


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