A man has been banned from running businesses for ten years after lying about the value of his business to get a £50,000 government loan.

Ryan William Moir’s company Croxton Group Ltd traded as a builder from Green Street industrial estate in Eastbourne.

The 34-year-old applied for the maximum £50,000 bounce-back loan provided by the government during the Covid pandemic in May 2020.

On the loan application, Moir said that Croxton Group Ltd’s turnover the previous year had been £250,000.

But when the company went into liquidation in May 2022, it owed around £184,500, including more than £49,400 towards the bounce-back loan.

An investigation by the government’s insolvency service showed that the company’s 2019 turnover had in fact been less than £21,000, meaning that Croxton Group Ltd had received almost ten times more than it had been entitled to under the rules of the scheme.

The company’s liquidators are taking action to recover the money.

Moir has been banned from being a company director for ten years after the Secretary of State for Business and Trade accepted disqualification undertakings.

His ban began on July 19, 2023.

The ban prevents the former director from becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.

Peter Fulham, chief investigator of the insolvency service said: “Covid-19 financial support schemes were funded from the public purse to support genuine businesses during the pandemic. Directors who abused the scheme have exploited taxpayers.

“The insolvency service will act to remove directors who abused bounce-back loans from the business arena."

Elsewhere, Ivan Hristov Fratev, 57 and Bradley Malone, 57, both from London have also been banned from breaking the loan rules.

Fratev was also given a two-year suspended sentence with four months’ electronically tagged curfew, at Snaresbrook Crown Court on June 23, 2023, in addition to a 6-year ban, for dissolving his business after taking out the £50,000 loan.

Mr Fulham added: "This two-year suspended prison sentence, along with a curfew order and a six-year disqualification, reflects the thoroughly dishonest conduct of Ivan Fratev and should serve as a warning to others who engaged in such behaviour."