The former owner of a Co Tyrone construction firm has been disqualified from being a company director for six years.
Patrick McHugh (35) from Ashleigh Court in Castlederg, provided the disqualification undertaking over his conduct as director of the building completion and finishing firm Erganagh Construction Services.
When the company was liquidated in February of this year, creditors were owed slightly over £155,000, according to the Department for the Economy.
Mr McHugh accepted the department’s description of his unfit conduct, including incorrectly submitting Vat returns that caused a “a loss of monies properly due to the Crown from 2018/19.”
The department found that the company therefore had more money to continue trading than it ought to have.
It also found that Mr McHugh had failed to submit annual returns in 2014 and 2015, and confirmation statements for the years between 2014-2018, within the prescribed time.
Erganagh Construction Services was incorporated in autumn 2013. Mr McHugh was the only named shareholder ever listed in the company’s filings.
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In 2018 to 19, the company had two compulsory strike-off notices filed but then discontinued.
The company’s most recently filed publicly available accounts in March 2018 covered the 12 months leading up to March 2017. The late filing of these accounts was one of the examples of “unfit conduct” by Mr McHugh that the department recorded.
At that time, the company said it owed £10,000 to creditors in the coming year, and was owed over £25,000 by debtors. It reported having £2,500 of cash at bank and in hand.
Prior to the appointment of liquidator by the department in late 2022, the company had a registered address of Listymore Park in Castlederg.
The liquidator appointed was Russell Hunter of Lecale Corporate Finance and Restructuring Limited in Stranmillis Embankment, Belfast.
Director’s disqualifications are legal instruments that prevent someone from becoming a company director without the leave of the High Court. They are made under the Company Directors Disqualification (Northern Ireland) Order 2002.
They are brought against the director’s of companies that the department believes have “abused the privilege of limited liability status through negligence, incompetence or lack of commercial probity”.
People facing a disqualification can also offer a “disqualification undertaking”, as Mr McHugh did. If accepted by the department, an undertaking removes the requirement of a court hearing.
An undertaking is still a legally binding commitment, however, and those who breach one face the same consequences as someone who violates an order made after a court ruling.
Disqualifications for periods of six to 10 years are used by the department “for cases which do not merit the top bracket”. “Particularly serious cases” can result in disqualifications of between 10-15 years.
Since the beginning of the financial year, the department has accepted nine disqualification undertakings and two disqualification undertakings have been made by the court.
The department say the orders are made for the protection of the public and other traders, and not to “inhibit genuine enterprise.”