Liam Francis Wainwright, former director of Rawdon Asset Finance Limited (RAF), has been banned by the Insolvency Service for 11 years after adding more than £12m in false entries to company records.
Wainwright has been banned from acting as a director or directly or indirectly becoming involved, without the permission of the court, in the promotion, formation or management of a company.
The company was incorporated in 2009 and provided finance to small and medium businesses unable to secure funding.
On numerous occasions, Wainwright reportedly allowed customers to borrow sums in excess of the security they had provided to RAF.
This practice exposed the company to substantial financial risk and in May 2019, RAF entered into administration before an investigation was launched by the Insolvency Service into Liam Wainwright’s conduct.
The investigation found that in an effort to conceal where he had provided additional funding to clients, Wainwright submitted multiple false entries to RAF accounting records from 2016 until the company entered into administration.
Investigators established that the company’s loan book claimed it had loans of almost £20m but this figure contained a number of “duplicate amounts or debts” that had already been written off. The true amount was an estimated £7.2m with the group’s lenders owing at least £18.7m.
On 21 October 2020, the Secretary of State accepted a disqualification undertaking from Wainwright, after he did not dispute making multiple false entries totalling approximately £12.6m in RAF’s loan book, causing false accounts to be filed, and thereby misrepresenting RAF’s position to its financiers.
Robert Clarke, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “Liam Wainwright intentionally made multiple false entries worth millions in his company’s loan book. The director was deliberate in his misconduct to conceal RAF’s true financial position from its financiers and exposed them to significant risk of financial harm with claims of more than £18m.
“Keeping proper records is a pivotal duty for directors and there is no place in the business environment for those who disregard their responsibilities and cover up the activities of their companies.”