The Lemon Fool

"At least £100 million of taxpayer-backed Covid loans went to companies formed after the start of the pandemic, raising questions about whether the money went to businesses it was designed to help. The cash was intended to support existing firms hit by the fallout from the pandemic but a loophole meant new companies, which the policy was not targeted at, were also able to benefit." - The Times

Amongst all the other scams, one assumes.

Are those who made the loans seeking recovery, or is it just easier to try to fall back on Gov't (taxpayer) guarantees in part and/or otherwise just apply increased fees elsewhere to mop up past costs (losses) to sweep matters under the carpet?

BobGe wrote:"At least £100 million of taxpayer-backed Covid loans went to companies formed after the start of the pandemic, raising questions about whether the money went to businesses it was designed to help. The cash was intended to support existing firms hit by the fallout from the pandemic but a loophole meant new companies, which the policy was not targeted at, were also able to benefit." - The Times

Amongst all the other scams, one assumes.

Are those who made the loans seeking recovery, or is it just easier to try to fall back on Gov't (taxpayer) guarantees in part and/or otherwise just apply increased fees elsewhere to mop up past costs (losses) to sweep matters under the carpet?

The alleged corruption has been quite breath-taking, if it's true, though well covered up and it's clear that journalists have been scared or warned-off not to dig deeper, though who knows?

Do your own research:

Ayanda Capital
Pestfix Ltd
Public First Ltd
Our World in Data
Topham Guerin
TAEG Energy
P14 Medical Ltd
Clipper Logistics
Pharmaceuticals Direct Ltd

All discussed in the newspapers over the last few years. I'm sure that they have nothing to hide and are all squeaky clean!


Steve

Although separate from recent revelations regarding the pocketing of government "bounce back" money, the government appears to have treated the pandemic crisis as an opportunity to enrich its associates and donors at public expense:

https://goodlawproject.org/update/high- ... -unlawful/

Although the exact nature of a lot of the irregular payments and secret dealings between the government and companies like PestFix and Ayanda Capital has yet to emerge (if it ever will), I think there are some other court cases being brought:

https://goodlawproject.org/news/conserv ... -vip-lane/

Interesting also are the tactics that government lawyers are taking to defend against these cases:

https://goodlawproject.org/update/bunzl ... ce-us-out/

stevensfo wrote:The alleged corruption has been quite breath-taking, if it's true, though well covered up and it's clear that journalists have been scared or warned-off not to dig deeper, though who knows?

Do your own research:

Ayanda Capital
Pestfix Ltd
Public First Ltd
Our World in Data
Topham Guerin
TAEG Energy
P14 Medical Ltd
Clipper Logistics
Pharmaceuticals Direct Ltd

All discussed in the newspapers over the last few years. I'm sure that they have nothing to hide and are all squeaky clean!


Steve

I know of Clipper Logistics, and have interviewed its CEO. I think that they do quite a lot of good stuff, so I was surprised to see them in this list.

In my 30+ years of experience as a journalist, being "warned-off" usually acts as a red flag to dig deeper -- or at least pass the story to someone who will, eg Private Eye.

Unless your insights into journalism are deeper than mine (which I doubt), then I'm inclined to doubt the "warning-off" suggestion.

MDW1954

MDW1954 wrote:

stevensfo wrote:The alleged corruption has been quite breath-taking, if it's true, though well covered up and it's clear that journalists have been scared or warned-off not to dig deeper, though who knows?

Do your own research:

Ayanda Capital
Pestfix Ltd
Public First Ltd
Our World in Data
Topham Guerin
TAEG Energy
P14 Medical Ltd
Clipper Logistics
Pharmaceuticals Direct Ltd

All discussed in the newspapers over the last few years. I'm sure that they have nothing to hide and are all squeaky clean!


Steve

I know of Clipper Logistics, and have interviewed its CEO. I think that they do quite a lot of good stuff, so I was surprised to see them in this list.

In my 30+ years of experience as a journalist, being "warned-off" usually acts as a red flag to dig deeper -- or at least pass the story to someone who will, eg Private Eye.

Unless your insights into journalism are deeper than mine (which I doubt), then I'm inclined to doubt the "warning-off" suggestion.

MDW1954

Maybe 'warned off' is too strong, but having followed the reports over the last few years, I'm surprised that these deals haven't been discussed a lot more.

Re. Clipper Logistics:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 18645.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 13003.html

Some rather interesting details of these firms and their PPE contracts can be found here, albeit with a search:

https://goodlawproject.org/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/


Steve

MDW1954 wrote:

stevensfo wrote:The alleged corruption has been quite breath-taking, if it's true, though well covered up and it's clear that journalists have been scared or warned-off not to dig deeper, though who knows?

Do your own research:

Ayanda Capital
Pestfix Ltd
Public First Ltd
Our World in Data
Topham Guerin
TAEG Energy
P14 Medical Ltd
Clipper Logistics
Pharmaceuticals Direct Ltd

All discussed in the newspapers over the last few years. I'm sure that they have nothing to hide and are all squeaky clean!


Steve

I know of Clipper Logistics, and have interviewed its CEO. I think that they do quite a lot of good stuff, so I was surprised to see them in this list.

In my 30+ years of experience as a journalist, being "warned-off" usually acts as a red flag to dig deeper -- or at least pass the story to someone who will, eg Private Eye.

Unless your insights into journalism are deeper than mine (which I doubt), then I'm inclined to doubt the "warning-off" suggestion.

MDW1954

Similarly for Our World In data. I thought they were a legitimate organisation doing a sterling job of tracking pandemic stats all along, often used and referenced by all manner of coronavirus commentators.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

The lender rules for CBILS is that you must try to recover sums owing from the borrower company first. Only once you have exhausted this route and provided evidence that you've done so, can you call upon the govt guarantee.

In addition there are very clear rules about what you can and can't do under the scheme. If you breach these the govt guarantee falls away.

I run a business that lent £50m of CBILS loans during the pandemic. We were audited part way through by KPMG on behalf of HM Govt and they were pretty ruthless. It was a very intensive process with no stone left unturned.

In my view there are some lenders such as funding circle who played fast and loose with the loan schemes and will face some big losses when the govt declines to pay up on the guarantee due to rule breaking.

I suspect that the headlines about taxpayers footing the bill for the fraudulent loans is scaremongering. I believe the lenders are at greatest risk, not the govt.

Incidentally, nearly 2 years after making our first CBILS loan we have yet to call upon the guarantee for any of them. We followed the rules and took appropriate actions. Not all lenders took that approach.

BobGe wrote:"More than one in every five pounds paid so far by taxpayers to cover bank losses on failed pandemic loans relates to credit issued to suspected fraudsters. New figures show that by the end of March, the government had settled £351 million of claims on the state guarantee to lenders who issued credit under the emergency bounce back loan scheme, £72 million of which banks had marked as potentially fraudulent." - The Times

£351million is trivial to the size of the UK economy so unlikely to have any noticeable impact.

dealtn wrote:

BobGe wrote:"More than one in every five pounds paid so far by taxpayers to cover bank losses on failed pandemic loans relates to credit issued to suspected fraudsters. New figures show that by the end of March, the government had settled £351 million of claims on the state guarantee to lenders who issued credit under the emergency bounce back loan scheme, £72 million of which banks had marked as potentially fraudulent." - The Times

£351million is trivial to the size of the UK economy so unlikely to have any noticeable impact.

While at the same time, HMG is magnanimously supplying £4m pounds of interest free credit, targeted at/expected to help up to 20,000 people: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0018fsx (5’ 30” in for details, 6:30 for comments from John Glen). Oh, and this is a two-year trial. Wouldn’t do to rush…

UrbanAchiever wrote:I suspect that the headlines about taxpayers footing the bill for the fraudulent loans is scaremongering. I believe the lenders are at greatest risk, not the govt.

UK taxpayer on hook for billions lost on Covid business loans
https://www.ft.com/content/a8addc5d-0e2 ... 45e22ec5e0

Just as a reminder of how things are going...

"Almost half of the £1.6 billion in state-backed pandemic loans provided by Starling Bank is either overdue or has effectively been written off, official figures show. An analysis of £1.41 billion worth of bounceback loans issued by Starling shows that at least £761 million is in arrears, default or has already been claimed back from the government." - The Times

I think you can probably add the R&D 100% tax claim to the list of incompetent government 'initiatives'. What was a quiet little number for a few years has now blown out of all proportion to the extent that agencies are now popping up everywhere to exploit this scheme for a percentage fee on any successful claim. Meanwhile, what is left of the HMRC continues to follow its tail round and round in clueless circles at the taxpayers' expense. I avoid the word 'chase' because that implies a degree of energy.

MDW1954 wrote:

stevensfo wrote:The alleged corruption has been quite breath-taking, if it's true, though well covered up and it's clear that journalists have been scared or warned-off not to dig deeper, though who knows?

Do your own research:

Ayanda Capital
Pestfix Ltd
Public First Ltd
Our World in Data
Topham Guerin
TAEG Energy
P14 Medical Ltd
Clipper Logistics
Pharmaceuticals Direct Ltd

All discussed in the newspapers over the last few years. I'm sure that they have nothing to hide and are all squeaky clean!


Steve

I know of Clipper Logistics, and have interviewed its CEO. I think that they do quite a lot of good stuff, so I was surprised to see them in this list.

In my 30+ years of experience as a journalist, being "warned-off" usually acts as a red flag to dig deeper -- or at least pass the story to someone who will, eg Private Eye.

Unless your insights into journalism are deeper than mine (which I doubt), then I'm inclined to doubt the "warning-off" suggestion.

MDW1954

I am also aware of Clipper Logistics. The company currently own some 50 racehorses and regularly pay six figure sums to acquire racehorses at auctions.

T7

I’ve recently been reading about Medpro: https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/08/13/ppe_medpro/, involved in a £200 million investigation.

Separately, Andrew Bridgen mentions £860 million PPE fraud involving PCR tests which went missing, some of which were traced to Berlin where they had been resold. He talks about this from about 27 minutes in this interview with Peter McIlvenna, Hearts of Oak: https://www.youtube.com/live/q6sVRB59A2 ... lwXTJbaF0S

BobGe wrote:Just as a reminder of how things are going...

"Almost half of the £1.6 billion in state-backed pandemic loans provided by Starling Bank is either overdue or has effectively been written off, official figures show. An analysis of £1.41 billion worth of bounceback loans issued by Starling shows that at least £761 million is in arrears, default or has already been claimed back from the government." - The Times

If you look up presentations for a law firm called Manolete you will find that banks have started using them to claim back these loans. They are getting around 85% of the money back. The banks tired it themselves via debt collectors and got less than 1%.
I am a shareholder in MANO.

Presumable this firm: "Manolete Partners Plc is a specialist insolvency litigation financing company. We fund or buy insolvency claims. We work with Insolvency Practitioners and their lawyers to maximise returns to creditors. We are renowned for our unparalleled knowledge of the Insolvency and Recovery sector."? https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MANO.L/

Which leads me to question if that's an 85% for their benefit and, if so, how little goes to the IR (and hence the taxpayer)?