Updated: Modification report added

Eclipse Finance Limited (Eclipse), was incorporated on 9 October 2015 and the company’s registered office is at International House 776-778 Barking Road, London E13 9PJ. The company claimed to be operating a binary options scheme.

Binary options trading is a form of fixed-odds betting on movements in financial markets. A binary option is a financial option in which the payoff is either some fixed monetary amount or nothing at all.

The court heard evidence that following complaints received about the company’s methods, the Insolvency Service investigated and petitioned for the company to be shut down, in the public interest.

The court also heard that:

• Eclipse traded through a virtual office facility in London and made false and misleading claims in persuading people from Britain and all over the world to invest in a bogus Binary Options scheme, which has since been wound up in the High Court on 26 June 2018
• the company claimed to be in the business of binary trading, but all the known investors lost significant sums, averaging over £50,000 each. Losses reported to Action Fraud totalled over £600,000
• potential investors were subject to high pressure sales tactics with misrepresentations being made as to the returns that would be made on investments. Trading was then apparently carried out with investors’ funds without authorisation and monies were removed from investors’ accounts without authorisation

The company then blamed these losses on the hacking of their computer system. This was claimed to have happened on two separate occasions but no evidence of this was provided to victims or to the investigators.

Other investors reported that their accounts were simply drained of funds without explanation and that the company then failed to respond to all attempts at contact.

Commenting on the case, Irshard Mohammed, Investigation Supervisor at the Insolvency Service, said:

Eclipse Finance Limited attracted investors with the promise of high returns but these to be unfounded and investors suffered heavy losses as a result.

The Financial Conduct Authority have warned consumers of the high risks of Binary Options trading, but in this case no evidence has been found that the company engaged in such trading. Instead they used the false promise of high returns to attract investment and then disappeared.

These winding-up proceedings show that the Insolvency Service will use the weight of its powers to take firm action against companies that operate in such an unscrupulous way.

The company was wound up on 26 June 2018 and the Official Receiver has been appointed as liquidator.

Notes to editors

Eclipse Finance Limited, company registration number 09818512, was incorporated on 9 October 2015. The company’s registered office is at International House 776-778 Barking Road, London E13 9PJ, that of a virtual office provider.

The petition to wind-up Eclipse Finance Limited was presented under s124A of the Insolvency Act 1986 on 03 May 2018. The company was wound up on 26 June 2018 and the Official Receiver has been appointed as liquidator.

Binary options trading is a form of fixed-odds betting on movements in financial markets. A binary option is a financial option in which the payoff is either some fixed monetary amount or nothing at all.

By virtue of the appointment of the Official Receiver all public enquiries concerning the affairs of the company should be made to: The Official Receiver, Public Interest Unit, 2nd Floor, 4 Abbey Orchard Street, London SW1P 2HT. Email: piu.south@insolvency.gsi.gov.uk.

Company Investigations, part of the Insolvency Service, uses powers under the Companies Act 1985 to conduct confidential fact-finding investigations into the activities of live limited companies in the UK on behalf of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Further information about live company investigations is available here

The Insolvency Service, an executive agency sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), administers the insolvency regime, and aims to deliver and promote a range of investigation and enforcement activities both civil and criminal in nature, to support fair and open markets. We do this by effectively enforcing the statutory company and insolvency regimes, maintaining public confidence in those regimes and reducing the harm caused to victims of fraudulent activity and to the business community, including dealing with the disqualification of directors in corporate failures.

BEIS’ mission is to build a dynamic and competitive UK economy that works for all, in particular by creating the conditions for business success and promoting an open global economy. The Criminal Investigations and Prosecutions team contributes to this aim by taking action to deter fraud and to regulate the market. They investigate and prosecute a range of offences, primarily relating to personal or company insolvencies.

The agency also authorises and regulates the insolvency profession, assesses and pays statutory entitlement to redundancy payments when an employer cannot or will not pay employees, provides banking and investment services for bankruptcy and liquidation estate funds and advises ministers and other government departments on insolvency law and practice.

Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct, is available.

Media enquiries for this press release – 020 7674 6910 or 020 7596 6187

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:

Chartwell Trustee Pension Solutions Ltd (Chartwell), was the sole trustee of the Pinnacle Pension Scheme and was incorporated on 14 December 2007. Its registered office was Kingfisher House, Bromley, Kent.

The Insolvency Service launched an investigation into the company’s activities following complaints received by it and Action Fraud.

The investigation found:

• the company was entrusted with in excess of £4.8m of members’ pension funds following an apparent cold-calling telesales operation. Members were told that they could expect a guaranteed 8% return into their pension for the first two years and that further returns may follow
• members were told their pensions would be invested in ‘storage products’. However, records provided by the company to the Insolvency Service investigators were incomplete, and it did not provide the investigators with an adequate explanation for the application of the funds it received
• customers experienced enormous difficulties in contacting the company, received very little information from the company and do not appear to have been issued with any Annual Returns, which are supposed to provide them with details of their invested funds, since October 2015

Investigators were unable to obtain any clear view of how the company operated and records the company did provide were incomplete, inconsistent, and contradicted information the company had itself provided to The Pensions Regulator.

The company was wound up by the court on Wednesday 6 June 2018, on the petition of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

The Court said that it was appropriate, desirable, and in the interest of investors to make an order to place the company into insolvent liquidation.

Judge Prentis found that the company operated with a lack of commercial probity, a lack of transparency, and without any presence at its Registered Office address. Investigators were unable to obtain any clear view of how the company operated.

Nobody appeared on behalf of the company to oppose the petition.

Investigation Supervisor Irshard Mohammed, of the Insolvency Service, said:

Those behind companies such as Chartwell should be aware that the Insolvency Service will not tolerate such abuses of the corporate regime. It is telling that this situation appears to have arisen from telephone cold-calling.

Members of the public should be most wary when approached with investment proposals or proposals of how to manage their pension, through unsolicited telephone calls.

Notes to editors

A winding-up order was made against Chartwell Trustee Pension Solutions Ltd on 6 June 2018 in the High Court of Justice.

The petition to wind up the company was presented in the High Court of Justice Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, on 9 April 2018, under the provisions of section 124A of the Insolvency Act 1986 following confidential enquiries by Company Investigations under section 447 of the Companies Act 1985, as amended.

Chartwell Trustee Pension Solutions Ltd was incorporated on 14 December 2007 with the Company Registration Number 06453607. Its Registered Office on 6 June 2018 was Kingfisher House, 21-23 Elmfield Road, Bromley, Kent, England, BR1 1LT.

The company’s sole director at the time of winding up is Christopher William Payne.

Mr Payne and another former director of Chartwell, Karen Carol Burton, were previously directors of Imperial Trustee Services Ltd, which was also wound up by the Insolvency Service on a Public Interest petition. The press release for Imperial Trustee Services Ltd is available here.

All enquiries concerning the affairs of the companies should be made to: The Official Receiver, Public Interest Unit, 4 Abbey Orchard Street, London, SW1P 2HT. Telephone: 0207 637 1110, Email: piu.or@insolvency.gsi.gov.uk.

Company Investigations, part of the Insolvency Service, uses powers under the Companies Act 1985 to conduct confidential fact-finding investigations into the activities of live limited companies in the UK on behalf of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Further information about live company investigations is available here.

The Insolvency Service administers the insolvency regime, investigating all compulsory liquidations and individual insolvencies (bankruptcies) through the Official Receiver to establish why they became insolvent. It may also use powers under the Companies Act 1985 to conduct confidential fact-finding investigations into the activities of live limited companies in the UK. In addition, the agency deals with disqualification of directors in corporate failures, assesses and pays statutory entitlement to redundancy payments when an employer cannot or will not pay employees, provides banking and investment services for bankruptcy and liquidation estate funds and advises ministers and other government departments on insolvency law and practice.

Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct, is available.

Media enquiries for this press release – 020 7674 6910 or 020 7596 6187

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:

The ‘predictive cognitive control system’ is being developed by Gloucestershire-based Montvieux and funded by the MOD’s Defence Innovation Fund through the Defence and Security Accelerator’s (DASA) fast track ‘Revolutionise the human information relationship for Defence’ competition.

The system takes a broad range of incredibly complex data, beyond the ability of analysts to simultaneously comprehend, and through the use of Deep Learning based neural networks, is able to make confidence-based predictions of future events and outcomes of direct operational relevance to Defence Users.

As part of Phase 2 development, the system is being refined in the innovation environment at RAF Wyton, and is being deployed into the live operational network (as a Beta service).

This will provide Defence analysts with a Machine Intelligence prediction Joe Hemming, Exploitation Lead said – “This project is a great example of collaboration between DASA, the competition sponsors (Joint Force Command) and the front lines working hard to turn technology into true capability. It’s a clear demonstration of the cultural shift across all organisations to focus on capability integration and exploitation as well as technology development.

Joint Force Commands operational deployment of this technology will allow real users to test the technology in a representative environment which will also demonstrate the real value of the technology to defence. Montvieux received over £600,000 in funding over both phases of the competition.   Lt Col Jon Kerr, Head CII said – “The DASA has enabled the Centre for Intelligence Innovation to meaningfully engage with industry to understand their innovations and how they might apply to our work. It has then enabled us to shape the development of and deploy Montvieux’s application onto our operational system.

This ability to engage early and partner with industry to deliver a solution has been invaluable to us. It has allowed us to put the front edge of innovation from UK industry through an accelerated development process and consequently fast-tracked the delivery of an appropriate solution for Defence.”

Peter Webb, Director of Montvieux, said – “The parallel focus of DASA on placing advanced capabilities in the hands of military users and developing wider exploitation opportunities, including commercial opportunities, has given us the space to think differently about how we operationalise our research and innovation within the company. With the help of DASA, we have been able to plan-back from potential commercial outcomes, and identify the right industry partners to move this forward.”

The willingness of Defence, especially CII, to think differently about partnering, rather than conventional contractual relationships, has meant that we’ve been able to jointly support each other. The result is that Defence analysts are getting an amazing capability that generates real insight from the huge volume of information they hold, but also that we will get critical feedback from the operational use of our service. The reference point of having our services in live use also adds credibility to our commercial discussions with industry partners, this is further enhanced by our associated and support from the DASA.

Overall we have found our engagement with DASA invaluable and would encourage other companies to think differently and get involved. We are also hugely appreciative of the critical role our DASA’s Technical Partner has played within the project, especially connecting us with the right people in defence at the right time to help maintain our momentum.”

See the video below for more from Peter Webb, Director of Montvieux:

Andrew Wire, Montvieux

The channel is being built in the river where it passes under the A59 at Skipbridge, Green Hammerton, between York and Harrogate.

Once the channel has been built an ultrasonic sensor will be attached under the bridge so accurate flow readings can be achieved.

This is important for predicting floods in York because the River Nidd is the last major watercourse flowing into the Ouse.

Project manager Oliver Wilson said:

This is one of the Environment Agency’s critical assets for our flood warning service and for managing water resource available for abstraction.

Having an early warning that the Ouse could overtop in York means we can act early to prevent flooding by closing flood gates in the city.

So that the concrete lined channel can be built a cofferdam has been put in place.

One half of the river is dammed off to create a dry working area to enable construction on that side, before the other side is dammed and the new channel structure can be completed.

There was an existing concrete channel built a number of years ago but due to the design and flow dynamics it created in the river the bed got silted up, causing incorrect flow readings and it not working as an effective gauge station.

The new channel is designed to make sure sediment passes through it and flow readings are accurate.

Mr Wilson added:

Lower river levels have enabled us to make really good progress and we expect the gauge station to be fully functioning this winter.

North Yorkshire County Council’s Highways Department has carried out work on the bridge and road earlier this year and Northern Powergrid also recently installed an electricity line across the bridge.

To view river levels click here