THE co-owner of a transportation firm says they face going under after being left nearly £50,000 out of pocket when Rangers kingpin Mike Ashley's clothing firm went into administration.
Justin McGonigle, of Last Minute Logistics, says there has been no response from Sports Direct, which owned USC, despite a face-to-face meeting with chief executive Dave Forsey at their Derbyshire head office in which they pleaded for payment to save the company.
He has since received an email from the administrators but said he was no closer knowing whether he would get any money back to prevent his own firm going under.
It has also been claimed that Business Secretary Vince Cable was not given advance notice of the redundancies when the Sports Direct-owned company went into administration last month, leading to the loss of jobs for 79 permanent staff and 166 either agency or zero-hour contract workers at Dundonald, South Ayrshire.
Last Minute was one of the delivery firms that ferried goods to Sports Direct and USC around the country and Mr McGonigle said they were given an indication that they could work something out.
Mr McGonigle has, along with staff, registered his complaints to Brian Donohoe, the local Labour MP, who is to push for Mr Ashley to be brought before the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills to explain the actions.
The Last Minute Logistics director said that they first realised payments for work carried out were late in December.When emails were sent to see if payments would be made by January 4, there was no reply, says Mr McGonigle. After emails and phone calls, company representatives turned up at the USC warehouse to see Sports Direct trucks "waiting to empty the place".
A week after the company went into administration, Mr McGonigle and other company representatives decided to face up Mr Ashley at the Sports Direct head office.
When he was not available, Mr Forsey, who sits on the board of Rangers Retail Ltd, which controls the retail of the club's branded sports and leisure goods, agreed to meet them.
"We pleaded our case and how we had an impeccable record of service for the last five years with them," said Mr McGonigle.
Mr McGonigle said they were told they would not be "leaving here with the money today but if you let the dust settle and contact us in a couple of weeks we can work something out". He said they called and emailed on January 26, and there was no reply.
The administration of West Coast Capital (USC) Ltd, the name of the company behind the USC retail brand, was jointly handled by former Rangers oldco administrators Duff & Phelps and the Gallagher Partnership.
At a meeting of USC's directors in December, the company said it was unable to repay debts.
Sports Direct declined to 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