Bogus consultancy firm shuts down for £1.5m Covid Fraud

Two connected companies which fraudulently received £1.5m in Covid support loans have been shut down, but neither co-operated with the Insolvency Service investigation

Ledbridge Consultants and Montague Partners, which had registered offices in London and Birmingham, have been shut down at the High Court after being found guilty of using the Covid loans for the financial gain of 35 beneficiaries of the companies.

All the money should have been used by the businesses, not for the personal gain of individuals.

The Insolvency Service also described the accounts produced by the connected companies as ‘suspicious’. The registered offices were in Birmingham and London.

The two companies claimed to be financial intermediaries and management consultants respectively.   

However, the Insolvency Service found that neither company had ever traded, despite millions of pounds being declared in their accounts. Both claimed £50,000 bounce back loans, along with £1.5m from Future Fund, another Covid support scheme.

The £1.5m credited into Montague Partners’ account was paid out to 35 individuals within a short space of time, with 10 of the beneficiaries receiving more than £75,000, spread out over numerous smaller transactions to hide the fraudulent activity.

Ledbridge had no money left after just one month, but when filing the accounts for 2021 declared it had earned £13.4m between February and August 2021. Montague similarly filed accounts stating it had total net assets of £2.2m in November 2020, but the previous accounting period showed just £1.

According to Companies House, Ledbridge has four directors, although only three were registered as directors in the early days of the pandemic, namely Donna Thomson and Lorcan Ward. Company secretary Adrian Brown was appointed in September 2021 while Michael Williams was named as a director in February 2021.

Montague Partners had no active directors on Companies House at the time of the fraud, but Alim Hooda was named as the sole person with significant control with more than 75% of shares.

Both companies had used the identities of people who had applied online to work for them to create companies, then register them as directors, shareholders, and investors, as well to ‘file suspicious documents with Companies House’. With continual lockdowns, online applications were the norm at that time.

The companies both failed to cooperate with the Insolvency Service, making it impossible for the investigators to discover who was in charge of the companies.

Cheryl Lambert, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service said: ‘Taxpayers’ money from Covid support schemes was drained from company bank accounts and no evidence was provided that the funds were ever used for the business themselves.

‘The allegations against Ledbridge Consultants and Montague Partners were extremely serious which is why it was important for us to apply to stop them from trading with immediate effect.’

The Official Receiver has been appointed as the liquidator of both companies.

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