Director faces 10-year ban for creating fake invoices
Investigators uncovered that the emails claiming Pure Point was owed £185,000 had been falsified
The director of a Sign and Displays company in Lescier has been disqualified for 10 years after submitting false invoices to claim more than £185,000 from lenders.
Russell Ivan Murch who managed the operations of Pure Point since 2010 experienced difficulties collecting payments from clients and began to use a factoring company to secure finance.
Factoring companies provide finance by purchasing invoices from a business. When the invoices are paid, arrangements are made for the proceeds to be paid back to the factoring company to repay the monies advanced to the borrower.
According to government officials, in August 2018 Murch forwarded “two emails to the factoring company advising them to collect £185,000 from one of Pure Point’s clients”.
The factoring company paid £185,000 in advance to Pure Point but when they attempted to claim funds from the client, the debts “were disputed and the factoring company was unable to collect money owed to them”.
Pure Point fell into rent arrears and assets were seized by the landlord. The company then went into liquidation in March 2019 before an investigation was launched by the Insolvency Service into Murch’s conduct.
Investigators uncovered that the emails claiming Pure Point was owed £185,000 had been falsified. Russell Murch told the Insolvency Service that he informed the factoring company that due to ill health, “the company’s sales manager had taken control of the company and that this employee was inflating sales”.
The factoring company, however, had no record of either discussion and at liquidation, Pure Point owed them more than £257,000.
Robert Clarke, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “Russell Murch ‘s behaviour was totally unacceptable and to be removed from the corporate arena for 10 years shows the seriousness of his actions.”
