Over 800 directors have been disqualified for abusing Covid loan scheme COVID LOANS More than 800 directors have been disqualified for abusing Covid support schemes over the 2023-24 financial year following investigations by the Insolvency Service.
MPs say government was ‘complacent’ on Covid fraud in new report Covid The government was “complacent in preventing fraud” against the Covid Bounce Back Loan Scheme and will lose almost £5bn to scammers, according to a Westminster committee. MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the £47bn loan scheme – which saw the government take on 100 per cent of default risk – was delivered at [...]
Starmer attacks PM and ‘loan shark chancellor’ over Covid fraud Covid fraud Sir Keir Starmer has hit out at the government over the billions of pounds lost to Covid fraud, accusing Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak of “turning a blind eye to scammers”. The Labour leader also labelled Sunak today as the “loan shark chancellor” over his recently unveiled package of measures aimed to reduce household energy [...]
Taxpayer foots bad Covid loan bill of £7.4bn amid ‘uncomfortable level of fraud’ September 14, 2023 The government has already had to foot a £7.4bn bill to settle bad loans while banks have claimed a further £1.13bn under the schemes.
Covid loan crisis as taxpayers foot £4.4bn bill to cover losses with more still owed in arrears or defaults February 8, 2023 The cost of Covid-era loan losses to the taxpayer could total £11bn, according to figures released by the British Business Bank British banks have already been paid £4.4bn to cover losses including fraud with more in arrears or default. Of the £77bn issued across three different loan schemes, according to figures published , £4.4bn has [...]
Covid loan fraud: More than 450 company directors disqualified in crackdown April 18, 2023 More than 450 company directors have been disqualified in a crackdown on covid fraud claims. The Insolvency Service announced that 459 of the 932 disqualifications overall for fraud were related to the coronavirus financial support scheme, introduced during the pandemic to help businesses in lockdown. This comes after the organisation published its monthly figures for [...]
Clawback: How Barclays is chasing down Covid-19 business loan cash January 10, 2023 Barclays has teamed up with a specialist insolvency practitioner to recover money loaned to small businesses through the UK’s Covid support schemes. The British bank has joined forces with insolvency firm Manolete Partners to recover emergency loans paid through the UK government backed Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), the Financial Times first reported. The UK’s [...]
Covid cash lost to fraud down by third because we’re ‘going after everybody’, Sunak claims May 3, 2023 Government cash lost to fraud and error via Covid-19 business and jobs support schemes has been reduced by a third thanks to “hundreds of criminal investigations”, Rishi Sunak has claimed. The prime minister defended the pandemic business loans and job support and vowed his government was “going after everybody” in a bid to reclaim the [...]
Funding Circle slides to loss as weak economy and end of Covid loans hit lending September 7, 2023 Funding Circle swung to a loss in the first half of the year as a sluggish UK economy and the winding down of government-backed Covid loans continued to drag on the small business lender’s bottom line. The London-listed fintech posted a pre-tax loss of £16.6m in the six months to June, against a profit of [...]
Data on firms that took UK Covid loans to remain secret, tribunal rules January 5, 2023 Information on thousands of small businesses that received taxpayer-backed loans during Covid-19 will remain confidential, a tribunal has ruled. The decision to keep the names of companies that took support during Covid a secret comes after a tribunal blocked an anti-corruption campaign group’s bid to obtain the data through a Freedom of Information (FoI) request. [...]