Record number found guilty
A record number of company directors from the same company have been disqualified aftre investigation by a Yorkshire accountancy firm.
Fourteen directors of The Parcel Exchange Ltd, which went into liquidation in 1999, were disqualified for misconduct.
Department of Trade and Industry officials believe that this is the largest number of directors ever disqualified from one company.
Leeds-based Bartfield & Co was appointed liquidator and aided DTI Insolvency Service officials in their investigation.
According to Gerald Krasner, senior partner of the firm, the delivery company was mismanaged from the outset.
He told Accountancy Age there was ‘no capital, no controls, and an inability to produce meaningful figures’.
The business, which was based in Birmingham, traded for only nine months and had a turnover of #3.5m, was destroyed by a failure to keep adequate financial records.
Krasner described the situation as: ‘No fraud, pure negligence.’
The liquidator, who was notified last week of the disqualifications, added that there were no accountants among the directors.
‘One of them dealt with the accounts but he didn’t have any accountancy qualifications.’
For more on disqualified directors see www.accountancyage.com/Business/1120643.