Directors banned for 17 years for abusing Covid loan scheme
Two Sheffield-based company directors have been banned after separate abuses of bounce back loans totalling £61,000.
Michael Andrew Higgins, 56, and Dean Emanuel Miller, 41, have been disqualified as company directors for a total of 17 years.
Bounce back loans were a government scheme launched during the Covid-19 pandemic. Loans of up to £50,000 were fully underwritten by the government, to encourage lenders to channel money to small businesses as quickly as possible.
Higgins was sole director of Steel Rigging, which provided driving services for TV outside broadcasts. In November 2020, Higgins applied for a £20,000 bounce back loan to support his business through the Covid-19 pandemic, stating that the company’s turnover for 2019 had been £80,000.
Under the rules of the scheme, any loan money allocated was to be used for the economic benefit of the business, and not for personal purposes.
But Steel Rigging went into liquidation in December 2021, owing £23,900 – including the full amount of the bounce back loan – and prompting an investigation by the Insolvency Service.
Read more: £640m fraudulently claimed from bounce back loan scheme
Investigators found that the company’s turnover had in fact been just under £40,000 in financial year ending 31 March 2019, and around £43,100 for the following financial year, meaning that the company had claimed at least £9,200 more in loan money than it was entitled to.
They also discovered that Higgins had transferred the £20,000 to his personal bank account in January and February 2021, without any evidence to show that these funds were used for the benefit of Steel Rigging.
Higgins’ disqualification lasts for eight years and started on 3 January 2023.
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In a separate case, Dean Miller, sole director of IBODYTALKS, an online health and fitness business also based in Sheffield, applied for a £42,000 bounce back loan for his company in May 2020.
Miller stated that the firm had been dormant until April 2020, and used a predicted turnover of £168,000 to apply for the loan. Under the rules of the scheme, businesses incorporated after 1 January 2019 were asked to estimate their turnover.
But the company went into liquidation in October 2021 owing more than £40,000.
Investigators discovered that IBODYTALKS had in fact been trading since December 2019, after finding that five deposits totalling £588 had been made into the company bank account between then and April 2020.
They calculated that IBODYTALK’s projected turnover for the year could only have been around £101,100, meaning that it had received more than £16,700 of loan money to which it had not been entitled.
Investigators also found that in June 2020, a month after the company received the loan, Miller transferred £41,000 to a connected company, and did not provide any evidence to show the money was used for the benefit of IBODYTALKS.
Miller was banned for nine years, beginning 1 February 2023.
Read more: Two company directors banned for bounce back loan fraud
