Robert John Craig, Ron Miller and Abdul Lahda, all of British Columbia, Canada were each issued with the disqualification order following the financial collapse of the business that offered online services to many of the world’s auction houses.
Today the icollector website, that offers bricks and mortar salerooms ‘realtime’ bidding on eBay, is operated by a Vancouver-based company iCollector.com Technologies Ltd.
The court’s ruling on June 22 was issued as part of the voluntary liquidation proceedings to dissolve Interactive Collector Ltd with massive debts estimated at around £24m and estimated assets of £90,000. It is a subsidiary of Collector Plc that is also in liquidation – the combined assets of the two companies thought to be less than £106,000.
Under the terms of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, the court found all three defendants – none of whom were present – guilty of “unfit conduct” with respect to certain financial matters. These included payments made by icollector to its ultimate parent company as well as to Robert Craig and a company called Black Box Technologies, “to the detriment of the creditors of Interactive and iCollector.” Abdul Lahda now serves as CEO of Ableauctions.com Inc of Florida and of iCollector.com Technologies Ltd.
While Interactive Collector Ltd has concluded its business in the British courts, litigation appears to be on the horizon for Mr Lahda’s North American companies. Ableauctions.com Inc and iCollector.com Technologies Ltd are joint plaintiffs in a lawsuit originally filed last year in Erie County, New York, against a rival service LiveAuctioneers LLC and its directors, Julian Ellison and John Ralston.
Both Mr Ellison and Mr Ralston were employees of iCollector Plc and Mr Ellison also worked for iCollector.com Technologies Ltd when the ‘phoenix’ company was formed.
The plaintiffs allege that Mr Ellison and Mr Ralston misappropriated trade secrets and were in breach of fiduciary duties as a result of leaving iCollector.com Technologies Ltd and competing in their new venture, LiveAuctioneers.com. The defendants counter that they had no restrictions on their post-termination conduct and deny that they misappropriated any trade secrets.
High Court rules against former icollector directors
THE High Court has barred the former directors of now-bankrupt Interactive Collector Ltd from serving as directors of any British company for a period of seven years.
