At a hearing at Reading Employment Tribunal Office last Friday (20 June), Judge Robin Lewis dismissed claims from the Secretary of State that there was no transfer of CLPM Dot Com's business to any other company around the time it went into administration in May 2007.

The Secretary of State, represented by Mr N Marsh, claimed that CLPM Dot Com's business had transferred at some point in 2007 to either Carters Management or B1 Colour, both of which are still trading but subject to winding up orders.

The former staff originally worked for Carter Litho in Slough before it was bought out of administration by Alliance PM in October 2006 which was subsequently renamed CLPM Dot Com.

If a transfer to another existing company had been established the claimants would have had to attempt to reclaim owed wages, holiday pay, redundancy and lieu of notice from that business.

Judge Lewis said: "I don't consider sufficient evidence of transference. There is insufficient, if at all, evidence that a transfer took place. This is an unsatisfactory outcome because of an insufficiency if evidence."

Carters Management
Mr Marsh argued the fact that cheques had been paid to staff from an account of Carters Management suggested that the transfer had taken place.

He added: "I have received email correspondence from Myles Bunyard confirming that the assets were sold to Carters Management."

However, witnesses presented a confusing picture of the firm's involvement.

Robert Mellish, one of the claimants said he had never heard of Carters Management but did confirm that he understood Bunyard had plans to move the CLPM Dot Com business at some point in the future.

He said: "If ever I took deliveries from customers it was always addressed to Alliance PM."

But another claimant, Pamela Verma, said that the name Carters Management was one of a number of names used during her time at CLPM Dot Com.

"For all intents and purposes things were the same as they had always been; there were small changes but everything was made to look the same throughout," she said.

"We used Carters Management throughout the whole period since Myles Bunyard was involved; the Carters name was used loosely throughout the whole time."


Behind the scenes
Mellish said that he only became aware that he had been made redundant from CLPM Dot Com during a phone call with Bunyard on 12 June.

However the official letter he received informing him of the decision was signed by Gareth Jones, who resigned as director some months earlier on 28 February 2007, according to Marsh, citing Companies House records.

Even more confusing was that Myles Bunyard was neither a shareholder, nor director at CLPM Dot Com according to Marsh, who questioned his authority to make these decisions.

Another witness, former managing director Steve Morris said that most of the decisions were made by Bunyard and implemented by Jones.

Jones had not responded to requests to appear as a witness in court.

Morris claimed that all documentation he had come into contact with was with Bunyard. He said that he had resigned as director of Alliance PM, but was then informed that he was still recorded as a director.

When asked why he thought he had resigned, Morris said: "Mr Bunyard printed out documents and I signed them and gave them back. I thought that was my resignation."

He explained that he had to resign in February 2007 because he had become personally bankrupt and could not hold a company directorship.

Morris was also informed that he was recorded on Companies House as a director of Carters Management, something which he claimed not to be aware of and had never heard of.


Financial arrangements
Morris was questioned on the role of cheque factoring companies Enterprise Funding and Industrial Corporate Finance.

He described Enterprise Funding, as a company that "was involved with financial arrangements that Bunyard set up".

He added that Bunyard had also been associated with Industrial Corporate Finance.

Marsh told the court that according to CLPM Dot Com's bank account there were several factored sales invoices from Enterprise Funding and Industrial Corporate Finance and that, according to the insolvency practitioner, the last of these occurred on 5 April 2007 - the last day of the 2006/07 financial year.

He also said his investigation had been held back due to a lack of evidence and a lack of cooperation from, among others, Industrial Corporate Finance and Bunyard, who failed to appear at court as a witness, because he feared for his safety.