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Lankan tycoon’s Lycamobile given 14 days to submit accounts
Lycamobile, a giant telecom company founded by a Sri Lankan businessman and investigated in Sri Lanka for business transactions with the former administration, has been given 14 days to submit its overdue accounts for 2015 or face the possibility of being struck off the British company register.
A spokesperson for Companies House, the registrar of British companies and an executive agency of the British Government, told the Sunday Times that on February 10 Lycamobile was given a 14-day deadline to submit its accounts that already been delayed by two months.
The spokesperson said if Lycamobile founded by Sri Lankan Subaskaran Allirajah failed to meet the deadline it could be listed in the London Gazette. After it failed to submit the accounts as required by November 30th last year, Companies House had twice written to Lycamobile about its lapse.
But those letters had gone unanswered until earlier this month following which Companies House set the 14 day deadline.
When the Sunday Times contacted Lycamobile it said it would get back with a response. When it did, it said in an email that “the correct situation is that the relevant Companies House notice to which you referred to has in fact been discontinued, as is reflected in Companies House records.”
The Sunday Times then asked Lycamobile whether it was not correct that Companies House had set a 14-day deadline to submit the accounts and whether the discontinuing of the notice was because the company had finally responded after two warnings, as mentioned by the Companies House spokesperson.
However Lycamobile had not responded midnight Friday. According to Companies House, this is not the first time that Lycamobile had failed to meet its accounts deadline. In 2012, the company failed to submit its accounts on time and the authorities threatened to ‘dissolve’ it. This would have resulted in Lycamobile ceasing to function.
British newspapers have reported on the activities of Lycamobile since 2012, particularly with regard to its financial affairs. It is said that the company is already facing a tax bill of £9.5 million owed to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs Department as unpaid taxes.
The media here have said that Lycamobile is the third largest donor to the Conservative Party and had backed Conservative Party nominee Boris Johnson when he contested for the post of Mayor of London.Lycamobile has reportedly donated £1.5m to the Conservative Party in the past five years becoming the third largest donor to Tory funds.