Victoria Jute Company (The) Limited (SC001197): administration
- Status
- Administration ended
- Administration began
- 2011-09-09
- Administrators
- Alan John Clark
- Administrators' firm
- Leonard Curtis
- Incorporated
- 1883-01-19
- Location
- Edinburgh
- Industry
- 13100 Preparation and spinning of textile fibres
Why it went into administration
- Creditor pressure / legal action
- Cash flow / liquidity pressure
- Management failings / irregularities
From the administrators' statement
The company was incorporated on 19 January 1883 in Scotland as The Victoria Jute Company Limited. It was incorporated to engage in the Jute industry which was based in India, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Titaghur Plc.
For many years the company traded profitably. However, during the 1980's and 1990’s the company faced a liquidity crisis and this ted to alleged defaults in the payment of statutory employment taxes to the Indian government.. A court ordered that the jute mills should be run by a jute supplier and RBD Textiles was appointed as a licensee in September 1995. The idea was that the licensee would remit payroll and pension taxes to the government. The company’s accounts for the year ended September 1995 explain that the board had taken the decision to licence the company’s mills in West Bengal to a jute supplier following adverse trading conditions resulting from labour unrest in the area.
Difficulties continued with the tax authorities in connection with pension fund payments to the company’s former employees. The Employers Provident Fund Organisation took direct action against the company’s assets and auctioned off shares in a subsidiary company, the Angus Jute Co Limited. One third of the shares in Angus Jute Co. Limited were owned by the company. The directors, as stated in the 2001 accounts, believe that the removal from the company’s office of the share certificates was illegal and that the subsequent auction by the Provident Fund was also illegal. In addition, the company believed that the auction process was not only illegal but fraudulent. Litigation has been ongoing to try to regain control over the company’s assets.
Administrators' statement of proposals (2011-11-29) · Companies House register