LONDON: Welsh family business which took five generations to build up, yet a blunder over a single letter was all that was needed to cause its collapse, leaving the British government with a £9 million ($17 million) legal bill.
A British High Court ruling has found a government department liable for the demise of Taylor & Sons Ltd – all because of a typo.
Companies House, part of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, erroneously recorded that the Cardiff engineering firm Taylor & Sons Ltd had been wound up. In fact it was another, entirely unconnected, company – Taylor & Son Ltd – which had actually gone bust. By the time Companies House tried to correct its mistake three days later, it was already too late for the Welsh business.
They [Companies House] had already sold the false information to the credit reference agencies,” said Philip Davison-Sebry, 57, former managing director and co-owner of Taylor & Sons Ltd. We lost all our credibility as all our suppliers thought we were in liquidation. It was like a snowball effect.”
Mr Davison-Sebry, a father-of-three from St Fagans, Cardiff, said that within just three weeks, all of its 3000 suppliers had been in touch to terminate orders and credit facilities were withdrawn.
I was on holiday in the Maldives when I got a message to urgently contact Corus, one of our major clients. They said they weren’t happy at all I was on holiday, asking how could I be on holiday at a time like this?” he said.
