Bang funds paid brothers' bills, court hears

BROTHERS SIMON and Christian Stokes, whose Bang Cafe Restaurant in Dublin has been wound up with debts of €2.4 million, spent almost €147,000 of the restaurant company’s money over an 18- month period on personal expenses, including payments for hotels and restaurants in Ireland, Britain, Denmark and Barbados, it has emerged at the High Court.

The company also owes more than €470,000 to the Revenue.

Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan was told yesterday that both brothers were consenting to orders under section 150 of the Companies Act restricting them, for five years, from acting as directors of companies unless those companies met minimum capital requirements.

An application by Tom Murray, liquidator of Mayfair Properties Ltd, which operated Bang Cafe, for orders under section 160 of the Companies Act disqualifying the brothers from involvement in the management of any company on grounds of unfitness, has been adjourned for three weeks.

Bernard Dunleavy, for the liquidator, said that given the consents to the restriction orders, a number of issues arose and he wanted the section 160 matter adjourned for three weeks.

Issues related to discovery for that application were also adjourned.

An examination by Mr Murray of credit card statements between January 2007 and June 2009 showed large sums of Mayfair company monies were used to pay personal bills incurred by Simon Stokes at hotels, restaurants and a range of stores in Ireland and abroad, the court heard.

Mayfair was incorporated in 1997, began trading in 1999 and operated the Bang Cafe at Merrion Row, Dublin, until it was wound up in January last year.

In an affidavit, Mr Murray outlined several concerns about the operation of Mayfair. These were: outstanding payments to the Revenue; history of under-declaring Revenue returns; personal use of company credit cards; failure to liquidate the company on a timely basis; inter-company loans; use of the Missford Ltd credit card machine; cash management; failure to submit accounts to the Company Registration Office, and failure to implement changes in tax legislation.

Mr Murray said the outstanding Revenue liability was €477,996 and he believed the directors had improperly used monies owing to the Revenue as a means of financing the business.

He also believed that from January 2008 to October 2009, the Revenue was not made fully aware of all liabilities of the company due to under-declaring returns in the sum of €89,325 and failure to submit returns at all for €151,251.

He also believed the company paid some €127,275 on Ulster Bank business credit cards from January 2007 to June 2009, and from June 2008 to June 2009, paid €19,851 on Bank of Ireland business credit cards.

Credit card statements showed significant personal use of the cards by the directors accounted for the vast majority of the monies spent, he said.