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Steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta is being prosecuted over his alleged failure to file accounts in Britain for more than 70 companies, adding to a list of legal problems facing the industrialist.
Gupta is fighting multiple charges of failing to provide copies of accounts to Companies House, the British company registry, according to court documents seen by the Financial Times.
The charges concern 76 companies, including Liberty Commodities, the trading firm that Gupta founded in the 1990s, and a number of companies that are part of his Liberty Steel group of metal factories.
Gupta, 53, pleaded not guilty to the charges at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court in March, the documents show. A conviction for failure to file company accounts can result in a fine and disqualification of directors.
Companies House said: “We can confirm that we are taking enforcement action. However, we cannot provide any further comment at this time.”
Gupta, a British commodities trader turned industrialist, began buying ailing metal factories around the world a decade ago, winning praise from politicians and being widely hailed as the “savior of steel” for his apparent desire to invest in an unloved industry.
His group of companies GFG Alliance claimed to employ 35,000 people at its peak, at its steelworks and other industrial businesses stretching from Britain to Australia, but the conglomerate came under severe financial pressure after its main lender, Greensill Capital, collapsed in 2021.
The Serious Fraud Office opened a criminal investigation into suspected fraud, fraudulent trading and money laundering at GFG shortly after Greensill’s collapse. No charges have been laid as part of that investigation, which the SFO confirmed is still ongoing. GFG has previously denied wrongdoing and pledged to “cooperate fully” with the SFO.
Four other directors – Iain Hunter, Deepak Sogani, Jeffrey Kabel and Jeffrey Stein – are also being prosecuted by Companies House in connection with the alleged failure to file accounts for the Gupta companies. All defendants have denied being guilty of the charges.
Hunter, 54, is the former CEO of Gupta’s Wyelands Bank. Hunter, Sogani, Kabel and Stein joined the boards of Liberty Steel and related companies in May 2021, with the metals group describing them as “specialist board members” who would help the company navigate the collapse of Greensill Capital.
Speaking on behalf of all five directors, a GFG Alliance spokesperson said: “There are no underlying issues with our accounts and the directors have taken all reasonable steps to resolve the situation.
“We have completed unaudited accounts for our UK companies and have been in regular contact with Companies House. This legal procedure has no impact on our activities.”
GFG has long been under scrutiny for its accounting practices and financial transparency, even before the SFO began its investigation in 2021.
GFG, which stands for Gupta Family Group, is not a legal entity that files a single set of consolidated accounts. The group is instead made up of hundreds of separately audited companies, many of which have different year-end dates, making it difficult to get a clear snapshot of the overall group.
Gupta promised to prepare consolidated accounts for GFG’s steel operations in 2019, but later blamed delays in preparing these financial statements on the coronavirus pandemic.
HM Revenue & Customs filed separate petitions this year to wind up three of the companies at the center of the Companies House case over alleged unpaid tax.
At a hearing last month, a lawyer acting on behalf of these GFG companies said the companies were in a “complicated position”, which “all stems from the fact that they cannot appoint auditors at the moment”.
Evidence submitted to London’s High Court shows that HMRC rejected unaudited accounts that GFG’s advisers attempted to file on its company tax returns, noting that they did not meet the filing requirement because they “were not signed by an accountant ”.
GFG has disputed the debt it says HMRC is owed and is contesting the winding-up applications, which have been adjourned until a further hearing next month.
The next hearing in the Companies House case is scheduled for January 2025.