Director of Coleraine restaurant disqualified

Undertakings were received for nine years from Lynda Coulter (55) of Deramore Park, Belfast in respect of her conduct as a director of the company Loughgall Limited.

The company traded as Bourbon Restaurant at 60 Great Victoria Street, Belfast and Charlys Restaurant on the Newbridge Road on the outskirts of Coleraine.

It went into liquidation on 2 May 2013 with estimated total assets available to creditors of £247,500, liabilities to secured creditors of £639,147, liabilities to unsecured creditors of £777,874 and an estimated deficiency as regards creditors of £1,169,521. After taking into account the losses incurred by the shareholders of the company the estimated total deficiency was £1,169,522.

The Department accepted the disqualification undertaking from Lynda Coulter on 25 February 2016 based on the following unfit conduct which solely for the purposes of the disqualification procedure was not disputed:

· Acting as a director whilst being an un-discharged bankrupt;

· Operating a Phoenix company and/or in the alterative repeating a pattern of unfit conduct and failure to learn from a previous insolvency;

· Causing and permitting the company to retain £311,806 properly due to the Crown consisting of £26,346 in respect of PAYE for the tax year 2012/13; £71,805 in respect of NIC for the tax years 2011/12 and 2012/13 and £213,655 in respect of VAT for the tax years 2011/12 and 2012/13.

The Department has accepted 25 disqualification undertakings and the Court has made eight orders disqualifying directors in the financial year commencing 1 April 2015.