High Court Disqualifies Director for 10 Years and Orders £21,300 Compensation After Bounce Back Loan Fraud at Rio Property Maintenance
In a judgment handed down on 30 September 2026, ICC Judge Barber in the High Court's Insolvency and Companies List imposed a 10-year disqualification order and a compensation order of £21,299.88 (inclusive of interest) against Enilson Antonio Vieira Da Silva, the former sole director of Rio Property Maintenance Limited, a Surrey-based office cleaning company. The sole ground of unfitness was that Da Silva caused the company to obtain a £50,000 Bounce Back Loan (BBL), a government-backed emergency lending scheme introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, by providing misleading information about the company's relevant turnover. The claim was brought by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, represented by Mr Thomas Cockburn of the Insolvency Service. The defendant did not attend the hearing on 29 June 2026 and was not represented, having been debarred from contesting the claim without court permission following his failure to comply with an unless order dated 3 February 2026. No permission was sought, so the matter proceeded unopposed. A second director, Maria Solenir Vieira Da Silva, was not a party to these proceedings, having given a disqualification undertaking in May 2024. The company had entered a creditors' voluntary liquidation (CVL) on 30 June 2022. The legal basis for the orders was sections 6 and 15A of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.
Why this matters
This judgment is one of many in a continuing wave of BBL fraud enforcement actions that the Insolvency Service and the Secretary of State have pursued since the end of the pandemic emergency lending period. A 10-year disqualification is toward the upper end of the range and reflects the court's serious view of deliberate misrepresentation to obtain public money. The case also illustrates the procedural teeth available to claimants in disqualification proceedings: the unless order mechanism debarred the defendant from contesting, allowing the court to grant the orders unopposed. For commercial lawyers, the steady stream of these judgments signals that BBL fraud enforcement remains active several years after the loans were issued, with the Insolvency Service continuing to prioritise cases involving dishonest turnover declarations.
On the Ground
This matter sits within insolvency and company law litigation, engaging the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 and the court's power to award compensation directly to creditors. The Insolvency Service instructed counsel; no private law firms are named in the sources. Work of this type for a trainee would involve preparing chronologies of the director's conduct, reviewing company accounts and loan application records, assisting with the affirmation in support of the claim, and maintaining the trial bundle and court filing records. For firms advising directors facing disqualification proceedings, the case also underscores the risk of procedural default: failing to comply with an unless order removes the right to contest the claim entirely.
Interview prep
Question you might get
“What powers does the court have in director disqualification proceedings, and how does the compensation order mechanism differ from a straightforward disqualification?”
Sign up free to see the full answer
A model answer you can lift into an interview — how to frame this story for a partner.
Sign up freeMy notes
saved