Companies House has won the UK’s ‘first ever’ successful prosecution for providing false company information against a businessman who included senior MPs as directors in his companies without their knowledge
Kevin Brewer incorporated John Vincent Cable Services Ltd in 2013, making the former business secretary Vince Cable a director and shareholder without his knowledge. The company was dissolved and taken off the company register after Companies House took action.
Brewer then formed another company in 2016, Cleverly Clogs Ltd, making Baroness Neville-Rolfe – the minister with responsibility for Companies House – James Cleverly MP and an imaginary Israeli national, Ibrahim Aman, all directors and shareholders without their knowledge. Companies House dissolved the company and took it off the company register.
Brewer, from Ullenhall in Warwickshire, was ordered to pay over £12,000 after he pleaded guilty to filing false information on the UK’s company register at a hearing in Redditch Magistrates’ Court on 15 March.
This is thought to be the first time a company director has been successfully prosecuted for falsifying company information under laws which came into force in 2009.
Business minister Andrew Griffiths said: ‘This prosecution – the first of its kind in the UK – shows the government will come down hard on people who knowingly break the law and file false information on the company register.’
Report by Pat Sweet
