Haitham Sabrah of London and Jihad El Saleh of Sierra Leone have been disqualified from acting as directors following an Insolvency Service investigation.

They acted as directors for Fly Salone Airlines Limited which operated flights from London to Sierra Leone. The company traded for four months, from 11 December 2015 to 17 March 2016. On entering liquidation, £2,072,180 remained outstanding to the company’s creditors.

The directors were disqualified for failing to keep sufficient business records to identify whether payments from the company from 2 February 2016 to 17 March 2016, totaling £170,913, were genuine company expenditure.

The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy accepted an undertaking from Haitham Sabrah effective from 8 September, and Jihad El Saleh effective from 28 September.

Commenting on the disqualification, Martin Gitner, Deputy Chief Investigator of Insolvent Investigations, Midlands & West at the Insolvency Service, said:

Directors have a duty to ensure proper accounting records are maintained, preserved and, following insolvency, delivered up to the insolvency practitioner.

By failing to do this, the public can not be sure that all funds received by the company were used for legitimate purposes.

The Insolvency Service will take action against directors who do not take their obligations seriously and abuse their position of trust.

Fly Salone Airlines Limited (Company No. 09738343) was incorporated on 18 August 2015.

Mr Sabrah’s date of birth is 17 November 1969 and he resides in London. He was appointed as a director on 18 August 2015.

Mr El Saleh’s date of birth is 29 November 1967 and he resides in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He was appointed as a director on 18 August 2015.

On 18 August 2017, the Secretary of State accepted a disqualification undertaking from Haitham Sabrah for a period of 7 years effective from 8 September 2017.

The matters of unfitness, were that he failed to ensure that Fly Salone Airlines Limited maintained or preserved, or in the alternative, failed to deliver up sufficient accounting records on behalf of Fly Salone Airlines Limited for the period 2 February 2016 to 17 March 2016. As a result it has not been possible to ascertain or verify:

• whether payments made to him, totalling £116,470 relate to genuine company expenditure
• whether payments made to third parties in the last week of trading, between 11 March 2016 and 17 March 2016, totalling £54,443 relate to genuine company expenditure

On liquidation, £2,072,180 remained outstanding to creditors and the company had no assets.

On 7 September 2017, the Secretary of State accepted a disqualification undertaking from Jihad El Saleh for a period of 7 years effective from 28 September 2017.

The matters of unfitness, which Mr El Saleh did not dispute in the Disqualification Undertaking, were that he failed to ensure that Fly Salone Airlines Limited maintained or preserved, or in the alternative, failed to deliver up sufficient accounting records on behalf of Fly Salone Airlines Limited for the period 2 February 2016 to 17 March 2016. As a result it has not been possible to ascertain or verify:

• whether payments made to Haitham Sabrah totalling £116,470 relate to genuine company expenditure
• whether payments made to third parties in the last week of trading, between 11 March 2016 and 17 March 2016, totalling £54,443 relate to genuine company expenditure

On liquidation, £2,072,180 remained outstanding to creditors and the company had no assets.

A disqualification order has the effect that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot:

• act as a director of a company
• take part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership
• be a receiver of a company’s property

Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings.

Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of other restrictions. 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.

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:

The First Secretary of State, Damian Green, spoke at the landmark opening of the new global headquarters of the NCC Group in Manchester, marking the first anniversary of the creation of the National Cyber Security Strategy (NCSS).

The NCSS was launched a year ago in response to the growing cyber security challenges and threats faced by the UK and to define the Government’s ambitions for the future.

As a part of this world-leading strategy the government invested £1.9 billion in establishing the innovative National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), demonstrating a long-term commitment to keeping the UK safe. Since its launch the NCSC has responded to over 590 significant cyber incidents: providing support to victims, sharing information with intelligence and law enforcement, and setting up incident management structures to ensure essential services are up and running once incidents have occurred.

The First Secretary spoke at the headquarters of the NCC Group – a global expert in cyber security and risk mitigation. The newly built headquarters in Manchester equipped with state of the art technology will employ more than 500 cyber security experts providing Britain’s and Europe’s largest companies with cyber security consultancy and cyber incident response.

Damian Green, First Secretary of State and Minister for the Cabinet Office said:

This Government is committed to tackling the growing threat of cyber security and will continue to invest in the future of our defence programme.

The Government’s Cyber Schools programme aims to provide skills to nearly 6,000 young people in order to secure the UK’s position as a world leader in cyber security for generations to come.

I am delighted that a global cyber security expert has chosen to open their headquarters in Manchester – fuelling the success of the Northern Powerhouse.

Brian Tenner, Interim CEO at NCC Group said:

NCC Group continues to play a pivotal role in advising government and helping to implement national initiatives which are strengthening the UK’s cyber security posture and helping to improve the country’s technical capabilities in this area. The First Secretary’s visit is recognition of this continuing support and we were delighted to welcome him to our company headquarters today.

The threat of cyber crime is an ever-evolving issue that is increasing in severity every day. It is encouraging that the UK Government is treating this as a priority and putting concrete strategies in place to address this. We will continue to offer our assistance and work closely with the UK Government on these new initiatives in order to improve the UK’s ability to defend against modern cyber threats.

Thank you, Brian, for the warm welcome and good morning to you all.

I am delighted to be here today to celebrate with you and officially open the new global HQ of the NCC Group. I just had a tour of the new offices and met some very interesting and creative people doing things that are truly amazing, and I know many of you here today have been instrumental in supporting the growth of this fantastic company.

NCC Group is a key part of a strong and growing UK cyber security industry. And you are a great example of business innovation and investment in the North of England.

The government is committed to attracting investment in the North and is building a Northern Powerhouse to help the cities, towns and rural communities of this part of the world combine their strengths to encourage greater prosperity.

I am pleased to say that in six months’ time CyberUK, the UK’s flagship cyber security event, will be hosted at the Manchester Convention Centre. And, next month, this city will also host the UK-Gulf Cyber Security Academic Symposium, which will continue to promote research and development in a number of crucial sectors, and deepen our international collaboration in cyber security.

So being here today is an ideal opportunity to reflect on the first year of this government’s five year UK National Cyber Security Strategy.

My role as First Secretary of State means that I am responsible for the overarching Government National Cyber Security Strategy and the National Cyber Security Programme which delivers it.

Our digital economy is thriving: tech companies have created 3.5 million new jobs in the UK and four out of five people in the UK bought something online in the past year – a higher figure than in any other country.

So citizens, business and academia all derive huge benefits from the connectivity of the digital world. But the Wannacry ransomware attack, Equifax data breach, and other recent incidents highlight the need for all organisations to take action on cyber security and protect personal data.

To meet these challenges the government launched a comprehensive National Cyber Security Strategy last November 2016, supported by £1.9 billion of transformational investment. And I am pleased to say that since the launch there has been a continuous flow of international partners to our country, keen to learn from and emulate our strategy.

The most visible achievement in the past year has been the creation of the National Cyber Security Centre, bringing key capabilities and expertise together in one place.

The NCSC marked its first birthday earlier this month and they’ve had a busy year. In all, they responded to more than 590 significant cyber incidents, more than 30 of which were sufficiently serious to require a cross-Government response.

The Wannacry virus and recent attack on the UK and Scottish Parliaments could have been considerably worse had the NCSC and the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit not been operational and in a position to lead the response.

Responding to incidents like this requires a co-ordinated effort, and I am heartened that the NCSC received so many offers of support from industry during the incident. Clearly, the secret ingredient behind much of what we have achieved so far is our ability to draw on strong partnerships across government, industry, civil society and the academic world.

But we are not just waiting for attacks to happen – we are also doing our utmost to prevent them. We cannot tackle the threats we face solely in the UK, so building constructive relationships with our international partners is essential and we remain committed to promoting a cyberspace which is free, open, peaceful and secure.

Working in partnership with our allies on cyber defence is one of the most pressing strategic challenges of our time. Over the year, we’ve expanded our efforts to increase cyber resilience around the globe in over 50 countries, by raising public awareness and reinforcing Computer Security Incident Response Teams. We’ve also started testing an ambitious Active Cyber Defence programme of ground breaking initiatives to improve basic cyber security across the public sector. Today, we are launching the next phase of our Cyber Aware programme through the Tech-Free-15 campaign which encourages the public and small businesses to adopt secure behaviours, like taking time out to install software and app updates to better protect themselves from cyber crime.

So our goal is not just to defend and deter cyber attacks, but also to develop our cyber security ecosystem. This means bringing together our local cyber security clusters and our world leading universities including the 14 Academic Centres of Excellence in Cyber Security.

The new Cheltenham Innovation Centre opened this year and launched a Cyber Accelerator programme, which provides start-ups with access to world-class experts to help them build cutting-edge technology.

And alongside the domestic support to business, the Department for International Trade leads efforts to increase the export of our world-leading cyber security capability, and is currently developing plans to do more to support the UK’s industry overseas.

And this year, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport kicked off their comprehensive Cyber Schools Programme, which aims to train nearly 6,000 young people over the coming years through extracurricular activities with the SANS Institute, BT, FutureLearn and the Cyber Security Challenge.

I would also like to pay tribute to NCC Group for your work with schools and universities to highlight cyber security as an attractive career path. Industry is coming together to sponsor our CyberFirst scheme, which saw more than 1,000 young people take part in summer courses this year. And earlier this year 8,000 girls entered the CyberFirst Girls competition, which is a fantastic success in a sector where we need more opportunities to promote and encourage diversity.

So there is a lot going on, and a lot that will be coming very soon, all part of this government’s goal of making the UK a world-leader in cyber security.

So in closing, let me thank you again for the invitation to help you mark this milestone as you open your new global headquarters. You are a great example of the UK’s global cyber security leadership and innovation, and I wish you the very best for the future. Thank you very much.

Commenting on today’s labour market statistics for Scotland, Scottish Secretary David Mundell said:

It is encouraging to see an increase in employment, which remains close to record levels.

But the rise in unemployment is disappointing and shows we must remain focused on boosting Scotland’s economy.

Growth in Scotland lags behinds the rest of the UK and I’d urge the Scottish Government to use their considerable economic levers more effectively.

The statistics can be accessed on the ONS website.

Further information

• Employment in Scotland increased by 35,000 over the quarter, and increased by 40,000 over the year to stand at 2,655,000.

• The Scots employment rate increased over the quarter to stand at 75.3 per cent. The rate is now at a near record high and is above the UK average of 75.1 per cent.

• Unemployment in Scotland increased by 9,000 over the quarter and is down 15,000 over the year. The level now stands at 113,000.

• At 4.1 per cent, the Scots unemployment rate is below that for the UK as a whole.

• Economic activity increased by 44,000 over the quarter and now stands at 2,767,000. The economic activity rate increased over the quarter to stand at 78.5 per cent.

• In September 2017, the number of people out of work and claiming out-of-work benefit – Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) and Universal Credit (UC) – was 80,500, up 500 over the month. The claimant count level is now 700 higher compared to one year ago.

The revision to existing National House Building Council (NHBC) undertakings, which currently cover over 1.6 million homes in the UK, will protect and encourage growing competition in the structural warranties market.

On 29 June 2017, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced – as part of its review of legally binding commitments (known as ‘undertakings’) given by the NHBC in 1995 – that it would consult on whether or not to amend the NHBC’s undertakings to bring them up to date with today’s market conditions.

This proposal reflected the CMA’s provisional finding that, although competition in the market has grown and house builders are now purchasing some or all of their structural warranties from a range of suppliers, the NHBC has retained a very high market share compared to its competitors.

Having carefully considered responses to its consultation, the CMA has determined in the final decision on its review to seek new undertakings that are more focused and closely targeted on encouraging effective competition than those given in 1995.

The CMA is now consulting on the new undertakings that have been offered by the NHBC. These proposals would oblige the NHBC to clearly display on its website that builders who are members of the NHBC can source structural warranties from both the NHBC and other providers, or from another provider alone. Given regulatory developments, these proposals would also remove any requirement on the NHBC to oversee warranties provided by its competitors.

The proposed new undertakings would replace the previous undertakings and remain in force for 15 years. They are set out in Annex 1 of the CMA’s final decision.

Anyone wishing to comment on the proposed undertakings should do so by 1 November by emailing structural.warranties@cma.gsi.gov.uk or writing to: