Directors disqualified for failing to maintain proper records

Two directors of Smart Credit & Debit Limited, a debt advice firm in Keighley, have been disqualified from acting as directors for six years each for failing to maintain proper accounting records or to account for substantial cash withdrawals from the company.

Both directors have given undertakings to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) not to promote, manage or be directors of a limited company until 2019. The directors were engaged in running a company that was supposed to assist some of the most financially vulnerable people in society. However, they  collected money from customers and failed to provide the services they were paid for. The directors also failed to provide verifiable or plausible explanations for significant sums of cash withdrawn from the company’s bank account.

The investigation showed that the accounting records maintained by the company failed to account for substantial cash withdrawals totalling £117,717, which occurred over the 10-month period that the company had been trading. The company was placed into creditors’ voluntary liquidation on 25 May 2011 owing £92,528 to creditors of which £62,415 was to trade and expense creditors.