‘Maxwell investigator’ appointed to investigate Harley Medical collapse
| Mar 13 2013 Investigators who hunted the late Robert Maxwell’s hidden fortune and who led the search for the missing assets of collapsed claims management company, The Accident Group, have been brought in to probe cosmetic surgery business, Harley Medical Centre Ltd. Paul Stanley, a partner at Begbies Traynor, will look into a number of transactions – including the payment of a dividend of more than £1m in 2010 – at the company, which went into administration in November following claims by thousands of women fitted with faulty breast implants supplied by French firm, Poly Implant Protheses (PIP). Mr Stanley, who spent months in Israel during the 1990s seeking out shares held by Robert Maxwell, has now been appointed joint liquidator of Harley Medical Group. He said: “The company accounts show large dividends were removed in 2010 and the creditors are concerned whether the directors at this time should have known that they were facing problems. “I have been appointed to trace all these transactions to make sure that the business was being run in a proper manner by the directors prior to the administration and to investigate possible claims against the UK distributor of PIP implants.” Harley Medical Group was deluged with complaints from women wanting their implants removed after it emerged that PIP had used industrial silicone originally intended for use in mattresses in its breast implants. The company is understood to have fitted around 13,900 faulty implants, around a third of the total in the UK and more than any other cosmetic surgery firm in the country. The women are understood to have made a claim against the company for around £15m after it emerged, in 2010, that the implants were faulty. Faced with a claim of that size, the London office of Leonard Curtis was appointed administrator of Harley Medical Centre Ltd last November and sold the business to the directors through a new vehicle, Aesthetic and Cosmetic Surgery Ltd in a pre-pack deal. PIP also went into administration. Now creditors of Harley Medical Centre have appointed Mr Stanley to investigate a number of transactions, including the removal of large dividends in 2010. Harley Medical, which traded as the Harley Medical Group, had its headquarters in London but employed 175 staff at 30 offices across the country. Mr Stanley has more than 30 years’ experience carrying out insolvency and proceeds of crime-related investigations and asset tracing on behalf of creditors, government departments and financial institutions. As well as being involved in the hunt for Robert Maxwell’s missing millions, he also led the investigation into The Accident Group (TAG), which collapsed in 2003 with debts of £100m and leaving 2,400 staff out of work. As a result of his investigation, the liquidation of TAG realised more than £17 million for creditors ‘Maxwell investigator’ appointed to investigate Harley Medical collapse | |
