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• The reason for CDt's failure to obtain the Cardiff
Page 16
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and Newport postcodes may lie closer to borne than simply failing to meet Palletways' strict criteria; one of the key players behind COL is disqualified director Mike Mitchell. In fact, until recently, the firm was not actually called CDL Logistics, but GSS Sameday, a firm whose name bears a striking resemblance to a number of other South Wales firms run by Mitchell arid his friends and family.
Although Mitchell is not listed as a director of CDL, his sister Christine Hillier is a joint shareholder and his wife Rhianydd is a director.
Global Specialist Services Ltd, a freight-forwarding firm that went into liquidation last March owing creditors almost 1400,000, was run by Christine Hillier and John Davies—although liquidator Ian Millington confirms that Mike Mitchell was involved in the firm. Its creditors say that Mike Mitchell took an active role in the running of the business and describe a litany of bad debts and excuses for non-payment.
Mike Hartley from Exeterbased MPH Courier Services says: "We agreed to work for them and set a credit limit and within a fortnight they had gone through that, but we received no money. Often we were told there was a cheque in the post that Just never arrived. I wouldn't touch them with a barge-pole. They Just didn't pay their bills."
That's a view that's echoed by Dave Holland at Il&L Distribution, another of Global Specialist
Services' creditors. He says: We were doing quite a bit of work for them when we got a phone call one morning from them saying all our invoices were being queried on price. We responded to the questions and went through every invoice [then] we asked them to pay the bill. A few days later they went under"
Holland adds that Mike Mitchell always presented himself as the director of the firm, even though Companies House records show otherwise. lie was eventually disqualified in July 2002. Liquidators confirm that only £12,000 was realised from the business and that creditors will not see a penny. The firm went from making a £60,000 profit in 2000 to a 1284,000 loss.
Prior to that. Mitchell ran Barry-based Global Transportation which ceased trading in 2000 (CM 9-15 March 20001 after running up similarly huge debts with subcontractors. Additionally, Mitchell ran GTL (UK) Ltd, which went into liquidation in February 2000. His fellow director and brother-in-law Mark Hillier
was declared bankrupt in 1994.
Another curiosity is Global Specialised Services LIP (limited liability partnership I set up in April 2001 by most of those involved in the other
companies: Mark Hillier Christine Hillier, Jonathon Davies, Rhianydd Mitchell and William Bailey. Global Specialised Services has an uncannily similar name to the previous liquidated company. Global Specialist Services. It is also more common to choose a company structure than an LLP for a freight forwarding firm.
However, Mark Rees defended Mike Mitchell's involvement in CDL Logistics, saying "I'm aware there's a history; but I have employed a qualified sales person and I can chose to employ who I want."
He denied that there was any conflict of interest in Mitchell's wife being a director He adds: ''He is not in a position where he extends credit to anybody and has no decision-making role."
Despite repeated attempts, we were unable to contact Mike Mitchell.