A businessman has been ordered to pay a total of £15,000 for withholding pension information legally required in an investigation by The Pensions Regulator (TPR).
Lee Bartholomew, a former company director of 1066 Target Sports Ltd in St Leonards, East Sussex, appeared at Lewes Crown Court on Friday (31 May).
Bartholomew, 45, of Tonbridge, Kent, was fined £7,500 and ordered to pay costs of £7,500, in a prosecution brought by TPR.
At a hearing last month, Bartholomew pleaded guilty under section 77(5) of the Pensions Act 2004 to intentionally and without reasonable excuse suppressing documents he was required to produce under section 72 of the Pensions Act 2004.
In his ruling, Judge Mooney told the defendant: “You took the decision to suppress, i.e. deliberately not provide, documentation you should have done because you knew to do so would alert the regulator that you weren’t paying money where you should have done.
“This caused a degree of distress to the people affected, as the money they thought was going into their pensions didn’t. It caused them real concern.”
Judge Mooney said Bartholomew’s decision not to provide the information required a sentence that serves as a punishment and also as a deterrent to others from doing the same thing, thereby emphasising the importance of regulatory compliance.
TPR formally requested the information on 10 June 2020 as part of an investigation into allegations of fraudulent evasion relating to employee pension contributions.
The court heard that Bartholomew intentionally failed to provide the information required by TPR by the deadline of 8 July 2020, suppressing the material sought without reasonable excuse.
Following his guilty plea, TPR said it is no longer prosecuting Bartholomew for fraudulent evasion of his duty to pay money deducted from the salaries of his employees as pension contributions into a workplace pension scheme within a prescribed period under section 49 of the Pensions Act 1995.
TPR head of automatic enrolment, compliance and enforcement Joe Turner said: “This case sends a clear warning that we do not hesitate to prosecute companies or individuals if they refuse to give us the right information when requested and/or try to frustrate our aim to protect pension savers.
“We attempted to use our civil powers to put things right in this case, but this was ignored. Anyone refusing to comply with our requests for information without good reason should take note that they could find themselves in court and with a criminal conviction.”
So did he pay the appropriate contributions and was there member detriment?.
Quote from above:
“This caused a degree of distress to the people affected, as the money they thought was going into their pensions didn’t. It caused them real concern.”
“Fraud” was also mentioned but nothing seems to have been done about it, so fraudsters seem encouraged to tick all the administrative boxes and keep the money.
A major bank, a few days ago, was fined heavily for apparent maltreatment of customers. Autocratic heavy hands again surely ’caused the customers real concern’ apparently since 2018: A routine business expense?
That, just after the Bank of England had already fined the same bank 57m for incompetence.
The BIG boys set the example!