Dominic Chappell could soon be banned from acting as a company director as the business secretary Greg Clark begins proceedings against him.
On Tuesday Chappell, who bought BHS for £1 in 2015 before it collapsed into administration leaving 11,000 people out of work and a £571 million pensions deficit in its wake, saw proceedings brought against him in the High Court.
According to The Times Chappell, his father Joseph and his colleague throughout the acquisition Lennart Henningson have been named in the proceedings in the Director Disqualification Court.
Tuesday’s preliminary hearing was overseen by specialist judge Sebastian Prentis, and no date for the trial has yet been set.
The government can ban an individual from being a director of any company for 15 years if you’re found guilty of allowing a company to continue trading when it can’t pay its debts, not sending accounts and returns to Companies House, not paying tax or using company money or assets for personal benefit.
Last month The Pensions Regulator accused Chappelle of having full knowledge of BHS’s poor financial health when he purchased it, despite a now discredited audit conducted by PwC stating it was a “going concern”.
This was part of the regulator’s bid to secure £9.5 million from Chappell to plug the remaining hole in its pension scheme, arguing that he should have funded the acquisition fees himself as apposed to taking them from BHS.
This is one of two cases The Pensions Regulator has brought against the former bankruptee Chappell, who was found guilty of failing to provide officials with information on the company’s pension scheme.
Chappell will appeal the conviction in Hove Crown Court later this week, with a re-trial of the case due this month.
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette’s free daily email newsletter
