Claims management company wound up over misused client funds


PPI form

Insolvency Service found “many examples of misconduct”

A Bradford-based payment protection insurance (PPI) claims management company, has been wound up by the High Court, following an investigation by the Insolvency Service (IS).

A spokesman for the IS said Redress Financial Management, trading under the name ‘Redress Claims’, charged customers an up-front fee of between £95 and £395 plus a percentage of the fee recovered, for its services.

He said the service had investigated the company, after receiving information from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), and found “many examples of misconduct”, including misusing client funds and taking unauthorised payments from clients.

Redress was also found to have failed to operate a proper complaints procedure, to the detriment of its customers, and failed to file statutory accounts and returns. The IS said the firm’s sole director was Naman Ahmed Hussein.

Alex Deane, investigation supervisor at the IS, said: “This company operated with flagrant disregard for the rules governing claims management services and proper financial controls.

“The investigation and subsequent legal action taken by the service were long and complex, and I would like to thank officials from the MoJ for their assistance in bringing the company’s activities to an end.”

The petition to wind-up Redress Financial Management was presented under section 124A of the Insolvency Act 1986 on 7 October 2013. The company was wound-up on 19 November 2014.

In a separate development, Richard Render, a Manchester-based director of Total Care Consumer Solutions, who traded as a claims and compensation consultant, was disqualified as a company director for six years from next month for failing to pay tax and paying himself instead.

The disqualification, which follows an investigation by the IS, means that Mr Render cannot control or manage a company without leave of the court until December 2020.

Robert Clarke, head of insolvent investigations for the north at the Insolvency Service, said: “Company directors have a duty to ensure businesses meet their legal obligations, including paying taxes and must not benefit themselves at the expense of creditors.”

Tags:




Leave a Comment

By clicking Submit you consent to Legal Futures storing your personal data and confirm you have read our Privacy Policy and section 5 of our Terms & Conditions which deals with user-generated content. All comments will be moderated before posting.

Required fields are marked *
Email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Blog


Change in regulator shouldn’t make AML less of a priority

While SRA fines for AML have been climbing, many in the profession aren’t confident they will get any relief from the FCA, a body used to dealing with a highly regulated industry.


There are 17 million wills waiting to be written

The main reason cited by people who do not have a will was a lack of awareness as to how to arrange one. As a professional community, we seem to be failing to get our message across.


The case for a single legal services regulator: why the current system is failing

From catastrophic firm collapses to endemic compliance failures, the evidence is mounting that the current multi-regulator model is fundamentally broken.


Loading animation