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Clifford Martin Stanford has been disqualified from acting as a director for 11 years for his conduct as director of Cerys-Angharad Ltd (Cerys) and Ifonic Plc (Ifonic).

And Timothy Mark Schubert has also been disqualified from acting as a director for 6 years in relation to his conduct as a director of Ifonic.

The order disqualifying the directors was made in the High Court on 27 November 2017 by Deputy Registrar Kyriakides.

The Insolvency Service found that members of the public had complained to Trading Standards and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) about Cerys, which resulted in the MOJ conducting an investigation into the company’s claims management procedures.

It was found that Cerys engaged in unfair trading practices in breach of the Conduct of Authorised Persons Rules 2006 and 2013 (“COAPRs”) and had failed to comply with the Compensation (Claims Management Services) Regulations 2006.

Cerys misled the public in sales calls regarding claims services offered, fees charged and cancellations. Services paid for by customers were not provided and fees were deducted from customers without their authorisation. Customers also complained of Cerys’ failure to issue a refund of up-front fees paid.

Despite the MOJ issuing warnings, the company failed to rectify the breaches, resulting in Cerys voluntarily surrendering its authorisation to provide claims management services.

The Insolvency Service then looked into the activities of Ifonic and found that following the closure of Cerys in March 2014, Ifonic acquired over 4,000 of Cerys’ existing clients and promised to honor the terms and conditions of their contracts including an assurance that all those due a refund of fees would be paid. Ifonic also entered a number of contracts with new clients.

However, existing and new clients of Ifonic experienced similar problems to those at Cerys and submitted complaints to the Legal Ombudsman and the MOJ.

The complaints received included claims that Ifonic provided misleading information in sales calls, had failed to address complaints and provide the service customers had paid for, taken unauthorised payments from customers and failed to issue refunds of up-front fees to customers who had cancelled their contracts within the cooling-off period.

The Insolvency Service found that similar to Cerys, Ifonic engaged in unfair trading practices in breach of the Conduct of Authorised Persons Rules 2013 and 2014 (“COAPRs”) and therefore failed to comply with the Compensation (Claims Management Services) Regulations 2006.

Despite the MOJ issuing warnings, Ifonic failed to rectify the breaches, resulting in Ifonic voluntarily surrendering its authorisation to provide claims management services.

Robert Clarke, Investigations Group Leader at the Insolvency Service said:

The Compensation (Claims Management Services) Regulations 2006 provide protection to the general public from unfair sales techniques by agents for companies operating within the claims management sector.

When company directors do not comply with legislation that is designed to protect customers and avoidable losses result, the Insolvency Service will seek lengthy periods of disqualification.

This should serve as a warning to other directors who may feel tempted to breach customer protection legislation. The Insolvency Service will rigorously pursue directors who deliberately mislead and breach the trust of customers.

The Insolvency Service is grateful for the assistance provided by The Ministry of Justice, Trading Standards and The Legal Ombudsman in achieving this outcome.

Notes to editors

Mr Clifford Martin Stanford is of Swansea and his date of birth is October 1954.

Mr Timothy Mark Schubert is of Swansea and his date of birth is November 1982.

The disqualification orders were pronounced by Deputy Registrar Kyriakides. Simon McLoughlin appeared as counsel, for the Secretary of State and the defendants neither appeared nor were represented.

Cerys-Angharad Ltd (CRN 07073557) which was incorporated on 12 November 2009, traded in claims management: cold calling members of the public and offering claims management services including mis-sold payment protection insurance and mortgages. Cerys traded from Princess House, Princess Way, Swansea, SA1 3LW. Cerys ceased trading on 20 March 2014 and was dissolved on 5 January 2016.

Ifonic Plc (CRN 03772954) was placed into Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation (CVL) on 17 June 2015 with a deficiency as regards creditors of £600,243. The company which was incorporated on 19 May 1999, traded in claims management, offering claims management services including mis-sold payment protection insurance and bank charges reclaims. Ifonic traded from 3rd Floor, Princess House, Princess Way, Swansea, SA1 3LW.

On 27 November 2017, Disqualification Orders were made against Mr Stanford and Mr Schubert on behalf of the Secretary of State, effective from 18 December 2017, for a period of 11 and 6 years respectively.

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, an executive agency sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), administers the insolvency regime, and aims to deliver and promote a range of investigation and enforcement activities both civil and criminal in nature, to support fair and open markets. We do this by effectively enforcing the statutory company and insolvency regimes, maintaining public confidence in those regimes and reducing the harm caused to victims of fraudulent activity and to the business community, including dealing with the disqualification of directors in corporate failures.

BEIS’ mission is to build a dynamic and competitive UK economy that works for all, in particular by creating the conditions for business success and promoting an open global economy. The Criminal Investigations and Prosecutions team contributes to this aim by taking action to deter fraud and to regulate the market. They investigate and prosecute a range of offences, primarily relating to personal or company insolvencies.
The agency also authorises and regulates the insolvency profession, 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.

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Today the government will launch a package of tough new measures designed to level the playing field for smaller businesses bidding to win government contracts.

Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Dowden will announce proposals to exclude suppliers from major government procurements if they cannot demonstrate fair and effective payment practices with their subcontractors. Other plans include allowing subcontractors to have greater access to buying authorities to report poor payment performance, signalling the government’s commitment to improving payment practice in the UK.

Further requirements mean suppliers will have to advertise subcontracting opportunities via the Contracts Finder website, and to provide the government with data showing how businesses in their supply chain, including small businesses, are benefiting from supplying to central government.

The Prime Minister has also today written to members of her Cabinet to nominate a Small Business Champion minister in each department to ensure that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are given a fair opportunity.

This package of measures is designed to ensure that more businesses – including smaller firms – will be able to supply goods and services to the public sector, while also making public procurement more transparent.

In the most recent figures from 2015/16, government spent £5.6 billion directly with small businesses. Indeed, when sub-contracts to small businesses from larger suppliers was taken into account, total spend rose to £12.2 billion.

Oliver Dowden, Minister for Implementation, said:

This government is listening to the business community and is committed to levelling the playing field for smaller suppliers to win work in the public sector.

We have set a challenging aspiration that 33% of procurement spend should be with small businesses by 2022 – and are doing more than ever to break down barriers for smaller firms.

Small businesses are the backbone of the UK economy, and play a key role in helping us to build a strong, viable private sector that delivers value for taxpayers and jobs for millions all over the UK.

Emma Jones, the Government’s Crown Representative for Small Business, said:

Securing a government contract is a great way for small firms to bring in a steady income stream that can really help their business to grow. These measures demonstrate the government’s clear commitment to small business, ensuring they can easily find and access new opportunities to supply to government.

Oliver Dowden has discussed the plans during a round table event in March, attended by the Federation of Small Businesses, the Confederation of British Industry, and industry bodies representing social enterprises, entrepreneurs, and Chambers of Commerce.

It is estimated that this group of organisations represents more than 2 million small businesses across the UK.

Federation of Small Businesses National Chairman, Mike Cherry, said:

Each year, the UK public sector spends over £200 billion on goods and services from third parties. As such a large and prominent customer in the economy, the government has a pivotal role to play in demonstrating what it is to be a good client.

It is right then that the government today announces, as part of a new package to boost SME procurement, that it will clamp down on poor payment practice throughout public procurement supply chains. Companies who pay late should not be rewarded with public sector contracts. We need a robust public procurement process that holds larger companies to account for their payment practices.

To coincide with the launch, the minister will today also be visiting two small businesses in the north-west who both supply services to the government.

The UK has joined a global battle to safeguard the world’s coral reefs from climate change and rising sea temperatures, Environment Minister Thérèse Coffey announced today.

International work to protect these vital marine habitats is gathering momentum as coral reefs come under increasing pressure from climate change and human activity – and today the UK officially joined the Coral Reef Life Declaration, committing to safeguard coral reefs and bolster scientific research into the threats they face.

The announcement comes just one week ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, where member states will gather in London to agree further global measures to protect our oceans.

From Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef, to 8,000 year-old cold-waters corals off the coast of the UK, the countries of the Commonwealth account for nearly half the world’s coral reefs – and over 250 million people across the Commonwealth depend directly on coral reefs for food and income.

Speaking from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, where High Commissioners and members of the UK’s science community gathered today to celebrate marine science across the Commonwealth, the Environment Minister Thérèse Coffey said:

Few people know the waters around the UK contain riches to rival the tropics – with our waters home to a vast array of cold water coral reefs that protect important marine life.

Through tapping into the UK’s world-leading marine science and working with our partners across the Commonwealth, we will help to safeguard this vital habitat and protect our oceans for future generations.

The Coral Reef Life Declaration was launched by Prince Albert II of Monaco at the Our Ocean conference in Malta in October last year to encourage countries to come together to protect coral reefs. So far 12 countries have signed the declaration, including Australia, Fiji and the Seychelles.

The UK’s waters are home to cold-water corals over 8,000 years old, with the only known coral reef in English waters protected as a Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ).

The Canyons MCZ, located off the Cornish coast, covers an area of more than 650 km2 and was designated in 2013 to protect the cold-water corals found there. There are also extensive reefs off the west coast of Scotland where there are seven Marine Protected Areas safeguarding this fragile habitat from damage.

The UK’s Overseas Territories also hold a huge array of tropical and cold water coral reefs. Through our Blue Belt programme we are currently on track to protect over four million square kilometres of ocean across the Overseas Territories by 2020, working with local communities to protect the coral species within.

This year has also been made the International Year of the Reef by the International Coral Reef Initiative – the leading organisation dedicated to protecting these habitats.

New measures will be introduced to professionalise the estate agent market, driving up standards and bringing an end to ‘rogue managing agents’, announced Housing Secretary Sajid Javid today (8 April 2018).

With over one million homes bought and sold in England each year, delays and complications during the process cause unnecessary financial and emotional stress to customers. This uncertainty can lead to delayed decisions and contributes to over one quarter of house sales falling through annually.

According to government research, more than 6 out of 10 buyers and sellers have experienced stress, and around a quarter of sellers said they would use a different estate agent if they were to go through the process again.

Estate agents will now be required to hold a professional qualification and to be transparent about the fees they receive for referring clients to solicitors, surveyors and mortgage brokers. Other measures to make the system easier, faster and more transparent include:

• encouraging the use of voluntary reservation agreements to help prevent sales falling through and crack down on gazumping
• setting a timeline for local authority searches so buyers get the information they need within 10 days
• requiring managing agents and freeholders to provide up-to-date lease information for a set fee and to an agreed timetable which will end the current situation where leaseholders are at the mercy of freeholders and their agents
• strengthening the National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team so they can carry out more enforcement activity which includes banning agents

Housing Secretary Sajid Javid said:

Buying a home is one of the biggest and most important purchases someone will make in their life. But for far too long buyers and sellers have been trapped in a stressful system full of delays and uncertainty.

So we’re going to put the consumers back in the driving seat. We will require estate agents to hold a qualification so that people are no longer at risk from a minority of ‘rogue agents’ and can trust the process when buying or selling their home.

Mark Hayward, Chief Executive, NAEA Propertymark said:

We particularly welcome the commitment to further regulation – we have long argued that estate agents should be recognised as professionals, this is an important step towards achieving this and we look forward to working with the government.

There are approximately 20,000 estate agent businesses across the country, and currently, anyone can practice as an estate agent. The changes set out will professionalise the sector, creating a more trustworthy and reliable industry who will be better held to account.

Guides on ‘How to Buy’ and ‘How to Sell’ will be developed and published to ensure customers are better informed of the process and know what questions they should be asking. The government will work with consumer groups and industry to develop a consistent set of performance metrics for conveyancers, so consumers can make a more informed choice.

To bring the profession into the technology era, a working group will be set up to bring industry and partners, such as HM Land Registry, together to look at developing innovative digital solutions to speed up the home buying and selling process.

Government will consult on how the industry can be brought up to professional standards, like those in the same trade such as conveyancers, solicitors and surveyors.

Further information

These new measures follow an 8 week consultation which ended in December 2017.

There will be behavioural insight research carried out on reservation agreements with the aim of trialling them by the end of this year.

Research last year by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy found:

• of those that experienced delays, 69% of sellers and 62% of buyers reported stress and worry as a result of the delay
• 46% of sellers had concerns about a buyer changing their mind after making an offer
• 24% of sellers would use a different estate agent if they were to go through the process again
• 32% of sellers and 28% of buyers were dissatisfied with the other party’s solicitor

Matthew Rycroft, Permanent Secretary of the UK Department for International Development (DFID), visited South Sudan on 5-6 April to see how UKAid is saving lives in one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises. This was the first time that Mr. Rycroft, formerly the British Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has visited the country.

The ongoing conflict in South Sudan has led to a man-made humanitarian catastrophe, with 4m people having fled their homes and half of the population severely food insecure. The UK is the forefront of the international response to the crisis. Last year, the UK reached over 500,000 people with food assistance, over 300,000 people with safe drinking water, and supported around 5 million health consultations to children under 5. The UK is also leading the effort to promote girls’ education, supporting 3,600 schools across the country and helping to keep a quarter of a million girls in class. But the ultimate solution to the crisis is peace, and the UK strongly supports the regionally–led peace process, the High Level Revitalisation Forum (HLRF), and is putting pressure on all sides to constructively engage.

Mr. Rycroft met with senior South Sudanese Ministers including Minister for Education, Deng Deng Hok Yai, and Dr. Riek Gai Kok, Minister of Health. In each of these meetings, he emphasised the need for the government to engage meaningfully in the peace process and underlined the vital and urgent importance of ensuring complete and unhindered access for humanitarian and development assistance. In a radio interview following his visit, he said:

UKAid is saving lives in South Sudan. But it is the Government of South Sudan that has the responsibility to stop the suffering of its people. They and other parties to the conflict must engage constructively with the next round of peace talks, which represent a crucial opportunity for peace, and end the appalling human rights abuses we have seen. They must also permit free and unhindered humanitarian access.

During his 2 day visit, Mr Rycroft met with a range of organisations that work with DFID to deliver UKAid, and some of those South Sudanese people directly benefitting. He visited El Sabah children’s hospital in the country’s capital, Juba, which is supported by UKAid in providing essential health, nutrition and vaccination services. Mr Rycroft also visited Juba Day Secondary School, supported by DFID’s girls’ education programme supported by UKAid, where he heard directly from girls who have been helped to stay in education. He met Akuja de Garang, MBE, who leads a team of 300 national and international professionals working nationwide to tackle barriers to girls’ education and to help brighten the future of a generation of children in South Sudan. During his visit, Matthew said:

It is vitally important that girls are able to remain in school and complete their education. Not only will this empower them to reach their full potential, by enhancing their economic and social opportunities, but it also lays the foundation for a peaceful and prosperous future for South Sudan. I have been inspired by the girls, women and educators that I have met today and commend their efforts to ensure that education is not lost to an entire generation.

Mr Rycroft also met with the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, David Shearer. The UK fully supports the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and has deployed nearly 400 peacekeepers to provide vital engineering and medical assistance. Matthew welcomed the close relationship between the UK and UNMISS, and re-iterated the UK’s full support for the UN Secretary-General’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy on sexual exploitation and abuse.