We successfully helped Manolete Partners, an insolvency litigation financing company, in a high value case against Mr Ismael Siza, the sole director of a restaurant and Shisha bar called Palms Palace Limited (PPL). PPL was being investigated for hiding sales in order to evade tax. Our involvement resulted in a quick recovery of assets.
HMRC had assessed PPL’s financial activity and charged PPL more than £300,000 in corporation tax and VAT. It had also considered that the suppressed sales (of over £4m) should be included in the director’s loan account for the company ‐ when a director takes money from their company that is not a salary, dividends or owed to them.
PPL went into creditors voluntary liquidation, a process that happens when a company cannot pay its debts and decides to voluntarily wind up its affairs. With no assets in the estate, the liquidator assigned the claim to Manolete, who issued proceedings without delay as a result of very quick case preparation by us.
We obtained a judgement against Mr Siza, and successfully defended against his attempt to overturn it. We then applied for and received permission to sell Mr Siza’s property, recovering money for our client.
