Stephen Cleeve suspended as parliamentary candidate by UKIP

The Kensington & Chelsea Chronicle reports here that Stephen Cleeve has been suspended by UKIP as their parliamentary candidate for Kensington 'pending further investigations'.

The Chronicle reports incorrectly that Stephen Cleeve was 'involved with a whisky scam in Australia'. Cleeve certainly attempted to sell plots of land in the UK to Australians but not I think whisky.

Cleeve said: "I am not banned from being a company director." This is correct as his 8 year ban on being a UK company director ended on 7th February 2008.  

Cleeve told the Chronicle that "I am certain that further investigation will prove I have done nothing wrong and I look forward to clearing my name, and standing for parliament."

To clarify the situation regarding the closure of Forrester & Lamego Ltd in 1997 I checked the documents at Companies House. On 23rd July 1997 Forrester & Lamego Ltd was ordered by Mr Justice Robert Walker in London's High Court to be wound up under the provisions of the Insolvency Act 1986 following a petition by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry presented on 11th February 1997.

The judge also ordered that: 'the costs of the Petitioner of the said Petition including the costs of 14th February 1997 and 5th March 1997 be paid out of the assets of the said Company such Order as to costs to be without prejudice to the Petitioner's liberty to apply on notice for the costs of the Petition to be borne by Mr Cleeve (a director) personally'. 

At the hearings on 14th February and 5th March Stephen Cleeve and his lawyers had successfully fought off the DTI's initial attempts to close the company in the public interest.

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8th April 2010: It appears from UKIP's site that Stephen Cleeve is no longer UKIP's candidate for Kensington. He has been replaced by Lady Caroline Pearson.

8th April 2010 22.25: An apparent change of mind as the message is now: We still haven't finalised our candidate to stand in Kensington. Find out how you can get involved in other ways, or donate by clicking  here.

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Stephen Cleeve (on twitter  8:46 AM Apr 8th via web) 
Sadly business commitments have forced me to stand down as the UKIP candidate for Kensington, I wish Lady Caroline Pearson all the best.

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Tony Hetherington in the Mail on Sunday (10th April 2010) devoted a whole page to Stephen Cleeve in the Money section.

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13th April: It turns out that it is Lady Caroline Pearson, who is replacing Stephen Cleeve, but this time she has a fuller title that includes 'of Rannoch'.

Storage – may not be sexy but it is vital!

I suspect that many potential investors when contacted by a firm offering wine investments pay insufficient attention to where and how their wine will be stored. They are probably satisfied to be told that their wine will be in bond.  Some companies include insurance and warehouse charges in their prices – sometimes for three years and sometimes for five.

Many of these accounts are umbrella accounts. Also called customers' reserves. Here wines will be stored under customers' names but will be part of an umbrella account held by the wine company. This is a popular arrangement for both legitimate and less legitimate companies as the customer doesn't have the hassle of setting up their own account. However, this arrangement does have the serious drawback that the wine company can move wine out of your account without your permission and knowledge. Furthermore the bonded warehouse naturally takes instructions from the account holder – the wine company.

My advice is to open your own account with a bonded warehouse. This way you have full control over your wine. There are links to some storage companies on the right hand side of this site.

A possible customers' reserves scam
There is nothing to stop a company selling you some wine, putting it into an umbrella account at one of the UK leading bonded warehouses and perhaps inviting you to check with the bonded warehouse that your wine is safely in customers' reserves. Once you are reassured the company might decide to remove your wine and either sell it without your permission and pocket the proceeds. Alternatively they might create a new company and move your wine into a new account set up in the new company name with no indication that this was once your wine. It is quite likely that you would not become concerned until you either decided to sell your wine or if the initial company disappears and you become concerned as you cannot contact them. By which time it is, of course, too late as your wine has disappeared along probably with the people running the scam.

I understand from a reliable source that the Metropolitan police are currently looking at around 20 wine investment companies.      

Finbow Fine Wines Ltd: a further update 25th March 2010

 I understand that Paul Rees, director of Finbow, has a meeting with the police investigating Finbow and Nouveau World Wines Ltd on Monday. There would appear to be some hope that money that people paid into Finbow can be recovered. That may be clearer after Monday’s meeting.

Paul Rees remains convinced that Finbow has a viable business model. On the face of it, however, I have severe doubts. 

In view of the police investigation it is probably wise not to give further details, although this may be possible after Monday.