The director of a Chinese restaurant in Manchester has been disqualified for five years for failing to ensure the company kept proper books and financial records, following an Insolvency Service investigation
Kong Yew Cheng was the director of The China Banquet Ltd, which went into liquidation in January 2015 with an estimated deficiency of £66,097.
The Insolvency Service’s investigation found Cheng failed to exercise proper control over the company’s affairs, and as a result failed to maintain adequate accounting records and/or failed to safeguard and deliver up to the liquidator such records as were maintained.
As a result, certain aspects of The China Banquet Ltd’s trading could not be explained, including the date that it ceased trading, its income and expenditure, and in particular any transactions conducted in cash, its assets and liabilities, and the recipients and/or purpose of various payments made from the company’s bank account during the period of trade totalling £144,816.
Robert Clarke, head of insolvent investigations north at the Insolvency Service, said: ‘Directors have a duty to ensure that their companies maintain proper accounting records, and, following insolvency, deliver them to the office-holder in the interests of fairness and transparency.
‘Without a full account of transactions it is impossible to determine whether a director has discharged his duties properly, or is using a lack of documentation as a cloak for impropriety.’
