Grigorijs Hacaturjancs, 34, from Latvia, has been disqualified as a director for 10 years after fraudulently claiming a £50,000 repayment loan.
Grigorijs Hacaturjancs was Director of Beauty&Melody Shop Ltd, which was incorporated in 2015 and operated as an online retailer of hair and beauty products. The company was unrelated to the London chain of hair and beauty salons of the same name.
Although company accounts show the company went out of business in 2019 and closed its website, Hacaturjancs applied for a £50,000 bounce back loan (BBL) in May 2020 on behalf of the company.
Businesses were only eligible for support through the BBL program if they had been affected by the pandemic lockdown, meaning online-only retailers such as Beauty & Melody could not apply.
As well as disqualifying Hacaturjancs’ business, he inflated the company’s turnover on the BBL app to get the maximum £50,000 available under the scheme.
Beauty&Melody went into voluntary liquidation in July 2021 shortly thereafter, after which the liquidator raised concerns with the Insolvency Department regarding the conduct of Grigorijs Hacaturjancs.
Investigators found the last sale by Beauty&Melody was on March 23, 2019, with no further money paid into the company’s bank account after that date until the £50,000 repayment loan was received in May 2020.
Just two weeks later, a payment of almost £50,000 was made to a company based in Slovakia. Hacaturjancs told investigators it was a supplier to the company, although Beauty & Melody had never done business with the company before and received no goods or services in return for payment. .
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has accepted a commitment to disqualify Grigorijs Hacaturjancs, after acknowledging that his company was insolvent in 2019 based on the balance sheet and that he had no not carried out adequate checks on the new company based in Slovakia the supplier.
His forfeiture is effective from July 12, 2022 and lasts 10 years.
The disqualification covenant prevents Hacaturjancs from getting involved directly or indirectly in the promotion, incorporation or management of a company, without the authorization of the court.
Dave Elliott, Chief Insolvency Service Investigator, said:
Mr. Hacaturjanc’s disqualification should have a chilling effect on those who think they can profit from obtaining taxpayer-backed loans to which they are not entitled.
The liquidator has determined that Hacaturjancs has no personal assets, but the possibility of seeking a compensation order will remain under consideration.
Notes to editors
Grigorijs Hacaturjancs is a Latvian national and his date of birth is February 1988.
Beauty&Melody Shop Ltd (company number 09639900). The company traded online from https://www.beautyandmelody.shop.
A disqualification order means that, without the express permission of a court, a disqualified person cannot:
- act as a director of a company
- participate, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, incorporation or management of a company or a limited liability company
- to be a receiver of a company’s assets
Forfeiture undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a forfeiture order but do not involve court proceedings.
Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a series of other restrictions.
Information about the work of the insolvency service and how to complain about financial misconduct.
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