Undercover BBC - Solicitor Expose

There are a lot of very dodgy companies run by foreigners, some quite large, they are set up deliberately to engage in fraud, then after 3 or 4 yrs disappear leaving £millions owing to creditors, VAT and tax

The rules need changing quickly

MaizieD

I don't see any mention of Companies House in the article, But it has been known for a long time that its procedure for registering companies and their directors is unbelievably poor. Anyone can register a company for a very modest fee using random addresses which have nothing to do with any company and no proof is required of the legitimacy of the owners or directors. 'Ghost directors' are easy to register and probably exist in very large numbers.

Provide sufficient loopholes and there will be plenty of people willing to exploit them.

It is to be hoped that this particular solicitor is struck off, but I don't expect he is the only one...

MaizieD the processes company directors have to go through has been tightened up.

(So much so that I had to spend the afternoon in the office recently (shock horror) going through a new registration (despite the company trading for over 40 years) in order to submit the company accounts, which was complicated and they wanted a lot of information, rightly so.)

I suppose the shelf companies get round this by not trading.

The other wheeze is to fold within the time limit for submitting accounts.

Time to tighten up registration and bring in strict measures against these companies then? The director lives abroad and/or cannot be traced, then seize the business, freeze its accounts and stop it trading until the fines are paid. That should concentrate the minds a little.
This solicitor should be struck off followed by others who assist in similar fraud.

I don't see any mention of Companies House in the article, But it has been known for a long time that its procedure for registering companies and their directors is unbelievably poor. Anyone can register a company for a very modest fee using random addresses which have nothing to do with any company and no proof is required of the legitimacy of the owners or directors. 'Ghost directors' are easy to register and probably exist in very large numbers.

Provide sufficient loopholes and there will be plenty of people willing to exploit them.

It is to be hoped that this particular solicitor is struck off, but I don't expect he is the only one...

It in the least surprised.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c30rln4pz58xo