Property developer banned for 11 years over Covid loan fraud
Anthony Killarney from Brentwood was given a ban for falsely claiming a £50,000 loan he was not entitled to.
A property developer has been disqualified for 11 years after claiming a Covid ‘bounce back loan’ fraudulently.
Anthony James Killarney, 62, from Brentwood, was given a ban for falsely claiming a £50,000 loan for his property development firm.
Killarney was the sole director of K11 Developments Ltd, which was incorporated in August 2015 and traded as a property development company based in Essex until it went into liquidation in November 2021.
In May 2020, Killarney applied for a bounce back loan for K11 Developments, stating the company’s 2019 turnover as £600,000.
Bounce back loans were a government scheme to help support businesses through the Covid pandemic. Under the rules of the scheme, companies could apply for loans of between £2,000 and £50,000, up to a maximum of 25% of their turnover for 2019, from the government’s British Business Bank.
But K11 Developments went into liquidation in November 2021, owing around £388,800, which triggered an investigation by the Insolvency Service.
Investigators discovered that the firm’s turnover for the years ending August 2017, 2018 and 2019 had been nil, and the company had not been entitled to the loan. The full amount of the loan was still owed when the company went into liquidation.
Stark warning
The ban prevents him from directly or indirectly becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.
The liquidator of K11 Developments is working to recover the full amount of the loan from the former director.
Martin Gitner, deputy head of insolvent investigations at the Insolvency Service, says: “The conduct of Anthony James Killarney fell extremely short of the standards required of company directors, and his ban should serve as a stark warning to other directors who may have misused financial support during the pandemic that the Insolvency Service will act to bring your misconduct to account”.