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Paula Anne Williamson, aged 43, a company director from Rochford, Essex has been disqualified from acting as a director for five years.

Ms Williamson gave an undertaking to the Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy that she will not act as a director of a limited company until September 2021.

Ms Williamson’ disqualification follows an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

The investigation found that between 1 August 2015 and late October 2015 Ms Williamson had caused Zebedee Limited a company selling prams and pushchairs, to continue to take customer monies and deposits for goods which it had no reasonable expectation of supplying to customers at a time when she knew or ought to have known that Zebedee was insolvent causing at least £34,010 of detriment to those customers.

Gemma Game, Deputy Head of Investigations, stated:

Directors who fail to provide goods that have been partially or wholly paid for, or fail to refund those monies to customers, damage economic confidence. Other directors tempted to follow this path should remember that if they run a business in a way that is detrimental to either its customers or its creditors they lose the protection afforded by limited liability. The Insolvency Service will investigate them and seek to remove them from the business environment.

Notes to editors

Paula Williamson is of Rochford, Essex and her date of birth is 26 June 2973;

Zebedee Limited (Company Reg no.06979039) was incorporated on 3 August 2009 and was placed into voluntary liquidation on 20 November 2015.

A disqualification order has the effect that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot:

• act as a director of a company
• take part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership
• be a receiver of a company’s property

Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings. Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of other restrictions.

The Insolvency Service administers the insolvency regime, investigating all compulsory liquidations and individual insolvencies (bankruptcies) through the Official Receiver to establish why they became insolvent. It may also use powers under the Companies Act 1985 to conduct confidential fact-finding investigations into the activities of live limited companies in the UK. In addition, the agency authorises and regulates the insolvency profession, deals with disqualification of directors in corporate failures, assesses and pays statutory entitlement to redundancy payments when an employer cannot or will not pay employees, provides banking and investment services for bankruptcy and liquidation estate funds and advises ministers and other government departments on insolvency law and practice.

Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct, is available.