Lack of company records is no defence

It was alleged Mr Crabb had deliberately kept swathes of the business secret from HMRC and had withdrawn over £2.5m in cash. Mr Crabb claimed that the cash withdrawals were entirely for the purchase of stock.

Mr Crabb admitted that he had habitually destroyed the company’s books and records. The court concluded that he had done so deliberately, to mask the company’s real trading position. 

As a result, there was no way of verifying what the true position of the company was in regard to its income, expenditure, VAT liabilities and day-to-day trading activities, and no contemporary evidence to demonstrate how the cash withdrawals had been used.

Mr Crabb was found liable for both misfeasance and fraudulent trading, having failed to demonstrate the use of cash in his hands for benefit to the company, and having fraudulently hidden the company’s true trading position to HMRC in order to under-pay VAT. He was found liable for sums exceeding £2.5m.

In regards to Dominik Thiel-Czerwinke and Jamie Taylor (Joint Liquidators of Courtside Recycling Limited) v Nicholas James Crabb [2024] EWHC 337 (Ch).