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Directors disqualified for total of 43 years after £1m VERs investment “scam” (2 March 2017)

Date: 02/03/2017
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Directors disqualified for total of 43 years after £1m VERs investment “scam”

An Insolvency Service investigation has resulted in three directors of a carbon credit trading company being disqualified for a total of 43 years.

Marcel McKeigue, Carl Stuart Thornton and Graham Stephen Philip Hawrysh were the directors of Cleartrade Limited, which sold worthless voluntary emission reduction carbon credits. Carbon credits are unsuitable as investments because there is no official market on which investors can re-sell the product.

Hawrysh, 40, gave an undertaking to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to be disqualified as a director for a period of 13 years.

McKeigue, 39, and Thornton, 36, did not defend proceedings brought by the Official Receiver and on 8 February 2017 were disqualified for 15 years each – the maximum period a director can be disqualified for.

The High Court found that members of the public had been deceived and that Cleartrade’s business was a scam.

Hawrysh’s disqualification commenced on 13 July 2016, those of McKeigue and Thornton will start on 1 March 2017 – they cannot promote, manage, or be a director of a limited company until 2031.

The disqualifications follow an investigation by the Official Receiver at the Public Interest Unit – a specialist team of the Insolvency Service, whose involvement commenced with the winding up of the company in the public interest, following an investigation by Company Investigations into the affairs of the company.

The Official Receiver’s investigation uncovered that, between November 2011 and October 2012, the company sold VERs (Verified Emissions Reduction credits – the equivalent of one tonne of carbon dioxide) – to members of the public as an investment, netting nearly £1 million.

The VERs they were selling had no potential to show a return – and McKeigue, Thornton and Hawrysh knew, or should have known, that this was the case.

Official Receiver in the Public Interest Unit, Anthony Hannon, said:


“This company’s claims about the profits to be made by buying its carbon credits were quite simply untrue – and only the company and those working for it made money. The lengthy periods of disqualification handed down in this case show that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated by the Insolvency Service nor by the court.”

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