Category: Sources

Rebecca Dale-Essex, of London, knowingly removed the money over a 24 day period prior to the company going into liquidation. She was the sole director of Belle Maison Direct Limited, which sold children’s furniture until it went into liquidation on 20 April 2016.

£42,000 of the amount removed came after she had informed the local council that her company had insufficient funds to make payments in respect of outstanding business rates. In total, she left creditors, including the council, out of pocket by £140,314.

She provided a disqualification undertaking to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy which prevents her from directly or indirectly becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company for six years.

Commenting on the disqualification, Martin Gitner, Deputy Chief Investigator of Insolvent Investigations, Midlands and West at the Insolvency Service, said:

Rebecca Dale-Essex deliberately removed significant amounts of cash from the company that was for her own benefit, leaving little, if anything, for the creditors of her company.

Company directors should note that the Insolvency Service will investigate and remove them from the business environment if they have acted to the detriment of the company creditors.

Notes to editors

Rebecca Dale-Essex’s date of birth is September 1971 and she resides in London; She was appointed as a director on 28 January 2009.

Belle Maison Direct Limited (Company number 06804657) was incorporated on 28 January 2009 and was placed into Creditors voluntary liquidation on 20 April 2016.

On 7 September 2017, the Secretary of State accepted a Disqualification Undertaking from Dale-Essex for 6 years, from 28 September 2017.

The matters of unfitness, which she did not dispute in the Disqualification Undertaking, were that:

• Between 19 June 2015 and 13 July 2015, despite knowing the amounts due in respect of Business Rates, she caused BMD to enter into transactions to the detriment of the company and its creditors totalling of £121,500, which worsened its insolvent position. These monies were funds held in BMD’s bank accounts, which she transferred to herself.

• Further, £42,000 of these funds were transferred between 7 July 2015 and 13 July 2015, after she had emailed the Council advising BMD had insufficient funds to maintain repayments to a historic balance outstanding in respect of Business Rates on 7 July 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, 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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In meetings during the visit, including with Foreign Minister Al Jubeir, Mr Burt highlighted common UK-Gulf security interests and discussed a range of issues. These included UK support for Vision 2030, the need to redouble efforts to end the war in Yemen, and the tensions with Qatar.

Mr Burt discussed the dire humanitarian and economic situation in Yemen with President Hadi and Foreign Minister Mekhlafi.

Speaking after his visit to Riyadh, Minister Burt said:

Saudi Arabia is one of our strongest regional allies and we continue to work closely together in a range of important areas. We support the delivery of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious reform programme, Vision 2030, and the need to resolve the ongoing dispute with Qatar.

Central to all of my meetings was the ongoing conflict in Yemen. I made clear my concern that this conflict was now contributing to the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, and that the longer it continued the worse the situation would get. I also stressed the importance of keeping space open for the humanitarian community. Everyone agrees that urgent steps must be taken to make progress towards a political solution. The UK is playing a central role in these efforts and I call upon all parties to the conflict to show the flexibility required to keep the political process moving.

Further information

• Follow Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt @AlistairBurtUK

• Follow the Foreign Office on Twitter @foreignoffice and Facebook

• Follow the Foreign Office on Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP said:

Over the past 24 hours, I have been in regular contact with the Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service and representatives from multi-agency emergency response organisations, ahead of Storm Ophelia. There is close co-operation between the agencies and necessary contingency arrangements are in place with the relevant resources and networks tasked to ensure public services are protected as far as possible. The UK Government stands ready to provide a full range of support if requested.

The Met office has put an Amber warning in place from 12 Noon to 11pm with the likelihood of storm force high winds during this period. Everyone should take steps to protect themselves and their family from the impacts of this severe weather threat.

We should be particularly mindful of the elderly and vulnerable and ensure they remain safe throughout the coming hours. Regular updates will be provided via NI Direct and PSNI across various social media channels.

I am remaining in Northern Ireland today and will be keeping in close contact with the agencies who are planning both for the initial storm and its aftermath.

People should be vigilant and stay safe.

Foreign Office staff around the world work hard to support British people who need our help. You can talk to a member of the consular team 24/7 by calling the Foreign Office, or the local Embassy number. Our consular network helped more than 23,000 people last year as well as continuing to help those with long-running cases from previous years. I am proud of the contribution which our consular team in the UAE makes to this global effort.

More than 100,000 British people live in the UAE and another 1.5 million visit every year. Fortunately, most stays in the UAE are trouble-free. The nature of consular work means that our team become involved when something has gone wrong. These can be highly distressing cases. Our team is there to provide support to the individuals and their partners and families. This support can include issuing emergency travel documents, visiting British people in hospital or in prison, or providing advice when they have fallen victim to crime. For people in detention our staff are there to support them and take an interest in their welfare. In 2017 so far there have been 213 new detainee cases (in 2016 there were 281).

There are, however, limits to the support we can provide. We cannot interfere in the legal processes or prison systems of other countries (just as we would not allow other governments to interfere in ours). But we do make representations if we have good grounds to believe that, for example, the host country’s own laws are not being properly followed, or a British person is being held in conditions which fall short of international standards. More information on what we can and cannot do can be found here.

Our travel advice for the UAE explains that local laws and customs are very different to those in the UK and that there may be serious penalties for doing something which may not be illegal in the UK. Both our travel advice and our Embassy’s many public awareness-raising campaigns cover some of the specific issues which may arise from differences in laws and customs.

We recommend that people make an effort before they travel to familiarise themselves with local laws and customs, and respect them while abroad. The Foreign Office doesn’t promote any country as a holiday destination. We do publish travel advice on 225 countries or territories to help British people make better-informed decisions about their foreign travel. No foreign travel can be guaranteed safe, but our advice is one source of useful information to help people make well-informed decisions – and take responsibility for their choices – when they are travelling. But we understand that, regardless of how prepared we all are, British people can still find themselves in difficult or distressing situations, and we are ready to help on those occasions.

More detail on how we put together our travel advice is available here.

Universal Health Services, Inc. – through its subsidiary Cygnet Health Care Limited (Cygnet) – acquired Cambian Adult Services in December 2016. Both companies run hospitals providing rehabilitation services to patients suffering from long-term mental illness.

An in-depth investigation by a group of independent Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) panel members has found that the merger may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition in the East Midlands where the companies would be the largest provider of male mental health rehabilitation services, being many times the size of the next largest provider in the region.

The CMA found that clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), the main customers of these hospitals, would have less choice, and may face higher prices or lower quality when referring patients. In odrer to maintain competition in the East Midlands, the companies are now required to sell one of their hospitals in the area to a buyer approved by the CMA.

The CMA has cleared the merger in all other regions originally identified, including the West Midlands where it had identified possible concerns about mental health services to female patients in its provisional decision published in August.

Simon Polito, Chair of the inquiry group, said:

Mental health hospitals are a vital part of our healthcare system, caring for some of the most vulnerable in our society. CCGs, who are under increasing budget pressure, should have access to a range of facilities and treatment options so they can ensure the best possible care.

We have found that this merger could affect the quality and price of mental health rehabilitation services for male patients in the East Midlands. The companies must now sell off one of their hospitals in this region.

Notes to editors

1. Cygnet Health Care Limited operates 20 mental health hospitals in the UK.

2. Cambian Adult Services operates 61 mental health hospitals in the UK.

3. The CMA is the UK’s primary competition and consumer authority. It is an independent non-ministerial government department with responsibility for carrying out investigations into mergers, markets and the regulated industries and enforcing competition and consumer law.

4. The final report can be found on the case page.

5. On 22 February 2017, the CMA started its initial investigation and on 3 May 2017 the CMA referred it for a phase 2 investigation.

6. All the CMA’s functions in phase 2 merger inquiries are performed by independent inquiry groups chosen from the CMA’s panel members, and supported by CMA staff. The appointed inquiry group are the decision-makers on phase 2 inquiries.

7. The members of the inquiry group are: Simon Polito (Inquiry Chair), Thomas Hoehn, Jill May and Andrew Popham.

8. The CMA’s panel members come from a variety of backgrounds, including economics, law, accountancy and/or business; the membership of an inquiry group usually reflects a mix of expertise and experience.

9. For more information on the CMA see our homepage or follow us on Twitter @CMAgovuk, Flickr and LinkedIn and like our Facebook page. Sign up to our email alerts to receive updates on merger cases.

10. Media enquiries should be directed to press@cma.gsi.gov.uk or 020 3738 6337