Insolvency Service
 Printable version
|
 E-mail this to a friend
|
Dodgy director disqualified for maximum 15 year term for wine scam
Stephen Pierre Boyd, a wine merchant, has been banned from being a director for the maximum disqualification term of 15 years by the High Court on 30 January following investigations by The Insolvency Service.
Mr Boyd, 55, of West London was disqualified after investigations found that he was acting as a director for Wine Traders International Limited (‘Wine Traders’) although he was already serving a 13-year disqualification at the time.
Under Mr Boyd’s direction, Wine Traders sold fine wines to members of the public as an investment. The wine sold was overpriced and in some instances no wine was even purchased for the customer.
The court also found that Mr Boyd had:-
- Caused the company to fail to supply customers with wine purchased for nearly £2million;
- wrongfully transferred customers’ wine valued at over £1million to a fictitious entity that he had created;
- wrongfully taken away a Porsche car leased to the company; and
- failed to keep records to explain over £3million expenditure.
In addition, a large quantity of the company’s stock was transferred to ‘Bradshaw & Karr’ – a fictitious corporate entity created by Boyd. The two disqualifications will run concurrently until 2028.
Wine Traders was wound up in the public interest by the High Court on 4 March 2010 after an investigation by The Insolvency Service’s Company Investigations.
Further investigations by The Insolvency Service’s Public Interest Unit carried out. led to the untangling of a web of false names used by Mr Boyd including Pierre Boyd , Steve Gordon and Dave Martin. This revealed the existence of a puppet director and to Mr Boyd being uncovered as the man in control of the company.
Sitting in the High Court on 30 January, Registrar Derrett found all of these allegations to be proven and handed down the maximum period of disqualification available.
Paul Titherington, Official Receiver in the Public Interest Unit (London) said:
“Mr Boyd is no stranger to bogus wine investment companies or to director disqualification proceedings. On Valentine’s Day 2006 Boyd was disqualified for 13 years over his role in The Wine Index Limited.
Hiding behind false names and stooges will not protect rogue directors. As this case shows, our investigations will reveal who is ultimately in control and we will take robust action to address wrongdoing.
In handing down the maximum possible period of disqualification, the Court has shown that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated. It also demonstrates that The Insolvency Service will seek to remove these people from the business environment”
Notes to Editors
- Wine Traders International Limited was incorporated on 15 September 2004 and ordered into compulsory liquidation in the public interest on the petition of The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills.
- 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. The Service also 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 is available from www.bis.gov.uk/insolvency.
- Media Enquiries should be directed to: Kathryn Montague, Media Relations Manager, Telephone 020 7674 6910 or Ade Daramy, Press Officer on 020 7596 6187 or ade.daramy@insolvency.gsi.gov.uk or Sarah Weaver on 020 6674 6422.
- You can now subscribe to get e-mail alerts from The Insolvency Service. You may wish to subscribe to receive updates for the whole site or any of the key areas, i.e. about us, news, personal, companies, redundancy, profession, publications, consultations, contact us etc. These areas can be expanded if required. To subscribe, go to the site and you will see a button to “sign up for email alerts and newsletters”, or click on the link below and follow the instructions:
https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKBIS/subscriber/new
