A controversial Scottish electronics entrepreneur will come under courtroom scrutiny next month in an action involving liquidators seeking the recovery of £3 million dividends paid by a company he closed in 2007.
Sam Russell and two other former directors of the Simclar Ayrshire business are named in an action launched by liquidators who took control after the company's operations were shut down with the loss of 420 jobs.
Experts from PricewaterhouseCoopers have been pursuing the action since 2009. They have challenged the lawfulness of a £3m dividend declared by the firm, payable to the parent Simclar Group, in June 2006. The closure of Simclar plants in Kilwinning and Irvine months later dealt a body blow to the local economy.
After two years of procedural wrangling the case will finally come to a head next month.
Following a hearing in the Court of Session yesterday, Lord Hodge said the case could proceed to the stage in which evidence will be considered by the court.
The court was told two partners in Grant Thornton, Robert Hannah and Toby Rintoul, have refused requests to provide statements. The accountancy firm audited the Simclar Group accounts for the years from 2006 to 2009, the last it has filed.
Lord Hodge has allowed 10 days for a proof before answer during which Mr Russell's account of events will be put under the microscope.
This may be a challenging experience for a man who was lauded as one of Scotland's entrepreneurial success stories. After starting Simclar in his garage in Fife in 1976 Mr Russell built the company into a group with operations in the Americas and China.
However, in June last year he placed Simclar Group into administration with the loss of 138 jobs at its plant in Dunfermline.
Two months later Mr Russell was criticised by John Park, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, for spurning a £10,000 offer from Scottish Enterprise to fund work on a survival plan in May.
But Mr Russell said: "They could not have done anything; they certainly could not have saved jobs. It was so far down the line when they came in."
He claimed the firm had provided huge benefits for parts of Scotland. Ian Durie and Stephen Donnelly, formerly directors of Simclar Ayrshire and Simclar Group, are also defenders in the liquidators' action.
In the company's accounts for 2009, Simclar Group said: "The company and certain of its directors are the subject of a claim by the liquidators of Simclar (Ayrshire). This claim is being defended vigorously."
A spokeswoman for Grant Thornton said: "The firm as a matter of policy does not comment on third party litigation matters."
Mr Russell did not respond to a telephone call made to his home seeking comment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article