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Restaurateur disqualified for five years for accounts mismanagement (27 March 2017)

Date: 27/03/2017
Duncan Lewis, Crime Solicitors, Restaurateur disqualified for five years for accounts mismanagement

The director of a Chinese restaurant in Manchester has been disqualified for five years for mismanaging accounts.

Kong Yew Cheng, 43, from Manchester – a director of The China Banquet Ltd – failed to ensure the company kept proper books and financial records.

Cheng was a director of the restaurant from 13 November 2012 until the company went into liquidation on 23 January 2015.

The estimated deficiency at the date of Liquidation was £66,097.

The Insolvency Service’s investigation found Cheng had failed to exercise proper control over the company’s affairs – and as a result, failed to maintain adequate accounting records and/or failed to safeguard and deliver up to the Liquidator such records as were maintained.

As a result, certain aspects of The China Banquet Ltd’s trading could not be explained – including the date that it ceased trading, its income and expenditure, its assets and liabilities, and the recipients and/or purpose of various payments made from the company’s bank account during the period of trade, totalling £144,816.

Payments that could not be verified included cash withdrawals between 6 December 2012 and 5 June 2014 totalling £14,731; cheque payments made between 11 December 2012 and 25 March 2014, totalling £61,460; and payments made to three individuals between 20 December 2012 and 25 April 2014, totalling £68,625.

It has also not been possible to ascertain and verify China Banquet’s assets and liabilities at the date of Liquidation.

Head of Insolvent Investigations North at the Insolvency Service, Robert Clarke, said:

“Directors have a duty to ensure that their companies maintain proper accounting records – and, following insolvency, deliver them to the office-holder in the interests of fairness and transparency.

“Without a full account of transactions, it is impossible to determine whether a director has discharged his duties properly – or is using a lack of documentation as a cloak for impropriety. Mr Cheng has paid the price for failing to do that, as he cannot now carry on in business other than at his own risk.


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