Alistair Lunt was sole director of Peak PAYE Ltd, an umbrella company registered in Manchester and set up in January 2019, which promoted a tax avoidance scheme resulting in tax losses of more than £2.6m in unpaid tax when it was used by end users according to HMRC estimates.

The 36-year-old, who now lives in Orange Country south of Los Angeles, has been banned as a company director for 10 years by the Insolvency Service and has been struck off the Companies House directors register. In the past six years, Lunt has held three other directorships of umbrella companies, inlcuding for three years at Simply Umbrella Services Ltd until it was dissolved.