A LEADING tax lawyer has called for an investigation into the ownership of the PPE firm that received more than £200 million of taxpayers’ money during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Douglas Barrowman were accused of lobbying Westminster during the pandemic resulting in a firm linked to them – PPE Medpro – receiving taxpayer-funded Covid contracts via the UK Government's "VIP lane".
Now, Dan Neidle, the founder of the Tax Policy Associates think tank, has asked whether PPE Medpro has complied with laws that require all firms to register the name of the person who controls them.
After analysing their filings at Companies House, he noted to The Times that the firm recently replaced one accountant with links to Barrowman as the “person with significant control” (PSC) with another associate of Barrowman’s.
It has been required by law since 2016 to declare a company’s real owners, or PSC. Failure to do so could result in prosecution and being jailed for up to two years or fined an unlimited amount.
Last weekend The Sunday Times reported that a key aide to the couple, Anthony Page, was sacked by PPE Medpro in May. He was also dismissed from Barrowman’s Knox Group for alleged gross misconduct – which he denies.
Page, who had been listed as a director and sole shareholder of PPE Medpro (or PSC), was replaced in these roles by Arthur Lancaster, another Barrowman business associate.
Neidle argues that Page would have remained the PSC despite being fired by the Knox Group if he had been the true owner of the company.
Neidle wrote in The Times: “If, as appears to have happened, the Knox Group had the power to remove Mr Page as shareholder/director of PPE Medpro and replace him with Mr Lancaster, then the Knox Group (and Douglas Barrowman, as the person who controls the Knox Group) had ‘significant influence or control’ over PPE Medpro and Mr Barrowman should have been listed as the PSC.
"If the Knox Group was acting for some other unknown party then they should also have been listed as a PSC.”
The NCA said: “The NCA does not routinely confirm or deny the existence of investigations or the names of those who may or may not be under investigation.”
Page declined to comment to The Times. In an email to The Sunday Times, the Barrowman private office disputed the interpretation of the accounts.
