A man from Lancashire has been banned from being the director of any company for 10 years after taking out a bounce back loan based on false turnover figures.

Marcin Tomasz Ciemiega, 44, was the director of freight transport firm M.C.Transporter Ltd, and in September 2020 applied for a Coronavirus bounce back loan of £35,000.

A note on the Insolvency Service register states that under the bounce back loan scheme, businesses could apply for a loan of between £2,000 and £50,000 subject to a maximum of up to 25 per cent of turnover.

The turnover figure required was that for the calendar year 2019 or where a business was established after January 2019, it would have been their estimated turnover.

M.C. Transporter Ltd, which was based in Shoreham-by-Sea, a coastal town in West Sussex, but is now under the control of a London-based liquidator, was incorporated on September 16, 2010.

Ciemiega, whose last known address was in Lostock Hall, Preston, stated his turnover for 2019 was £150,000, but according to company accounts for the year ending September 30, 2019, the actual turnover for 2019 was £35,514.

The turnover figures were self-certified by Ciemega, who appears to have been a self-employed lorry driver.

The turnover for the year ending September 30, 2020, was £40,187.

This would have meant the maximum Ciemiega could have applied for in 2020 would have been £8,878.

M.C. Transporter Ltd received the bounce back loan funds of £35,000 - £26,122 more than the business was entitled to - on September 3, 2020, just two days after applying for the money.

This was in breach of bounce back loan terms and conditions.

M.C. Transporter Ltd entered creditor’s voluntary liquidation on May 23, 2022, with just £44 in the bank.

The Insolvency Service notice stated: “Total liabilities at liquidation was £51,821.79, of which £35,000 relates to the amount owed in respect of the bounce back loan.”

The disqualification order began on August 17 and will last for 10 years from that date, meaning Ciemiega, of Alpine Close, Lostock Hall, Preston, will be 54 before he is allowed to take control of a business again.