Dacorum director disqualified for fraudulently claiming tens of thousands in Covid bounce back loan

A director based in Dacorum has been banned from running a business for 12 years after investigators discovered he claimed a Covid support loan fraudulently.

Simon Grant Gorgin, 63, who is based in Kings Langley, claimed a £45,000 loan from the Government.

A bounce back loan scheme was set up by the Government to support businesses at the height of the pandemic.

Businesses which applied for the scheme had to meet certain criteria, and in return the Government could authorise funding of up to 25 per cent of those companies’ turnover, to a maximum of £50,000.

Under the rules, companies had to have been trading by 1 March 2020, and be actively trading at the time of the application.

Gorgin requested the loan to boast his company, P3 Estates Ltd, in May 2020. Gorgin was sole director of the company, from its incorporation in April 2010 until it was dissolved in December 2021.

Yet Gorgin stated on the loan application that P3 Estate’s turnover in 2019 had been £180,000. A loan of £45,000 arrived in the company’s bank account the following day.

But a month earlier, he had applied to dissolve the company and by July of the same year P3 Estates still owed the full amount of the loan, prompting an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

Investigators discovered that P3 Estate Ltd had never traded, and had not been trading at the time of the loan application and so had not been entitled to receive any money under the scheme.

They also found that three days after the loan arrived in the company’s account, Gorgin had further breached the rules of the scheme by transferring the full £45,000 to his own bank account.

And Gorgin failed to notify the bank from which he had borrowed the money that he had applied to strike off the company – breaching a legal obligation for directors to notify creditors when dissolving their business.

The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy accepted disqualification undertakings from the two directors, after both did not dispute that they had caused their companies to receive Bounce Back Loans to which they were not entitled.

Gorgin also did not dispute he had failed to cause his company to falsely apply for a Bounce Back Loan when it was not actively trading, failed to ensure the money was used for the economic benefit of the business and failed to give the required notice to the bank of the dissolution of his business.

Gorgin has been banned for 12 years, starting on 5 January 2023. The disqualifications prevent him from directly or indirectly becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.

A compensation order is being recommended to recover the money.

Peter Smith, deputy head of dissolved company investigations at the Insolvency Service, said: “Bounce Back Loans were designed to help businesses to survive the pandemic. Simon Gorgin abused the scheme and took taxpayers’ money at a time when many businesses were in genuine need.

“[His] lengthy bans should stand as a warning that we will take action against directors who abuse government support schemes.”