A Sussex businessman has been ordered to pay £15,000 for withholding information during a probe by The Pensions Regulator.
Lee Bartholomew, 45, from Tonbridge in Kent, appeared before Lewes Crown Court on May 31 were he was fined £7,500 and ordered to pay costs of £7,500.
At a previous hearing at the same court on April 26, Bartholomew pleaded guilty to intentionally and without reasonable excuse suppressing documents he was legally required to produce as part of TPR’s investigation.
TPR formally requested the information on June 10, 2020 as part of an investigation into allegations of fraudulent evasion relating to employee pension contributions.
The court heard Bartholomew, former company director of 1066 Target Sports, intentionally failed to provide the information required by TPR by the deadline of July 8, 2020.
TPR 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.
In his ruling, Judge Mooney told the defendant: “You took the decision to suppress, ie 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.”
The judge added that as this had not been done, he could not know where the money went at that time.
He continued: “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.”
Joe Turner, head of automatic enrolment compliance and enforcement at The Pensions Regulator, 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.”
amy.austin@ft.com
