Spelling mistake leads to closure of 134-year-old firm

Published Jan 29, 2015

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A BRITISH civil servant’s elementary spelling mistake has led to the collapse of a business employing 250 workers.

Companies House wrongly said that engineering firm Taylor & Sons had been wound up – when in fact it was an unrelated company called Taylor & Son.

As false rumours spread that the business was in trouble, customers cancelled their orders and credit facilities were withdrawn, leaving the 134-year-old firm unable to keep trading.

Now a high court judge has ruled that Companies House was liable for the firms default, and must pay as much as £8.8 million (R153m) in compensation to its owner Philip Davison-Sebry.

When Taylor & Son went out of business in February 2009, Companies House wrongly amended the companies register to say that it was Taylor & Sons which had ceased trading, the court heard.

The blunder was corrected three days later – but word had already begun to spread that Taylor & Sons, based in Cardiff, was in financial trouble.

Davison-Sebry was on holiday at the time, and began to receive angry phone calls from clients asking why he had fled when his company was in liquidation.

His lawyer Clive Freedman QC told the court that the firm’s best customer, Tata Steel, quickly withdrew its £400 000-a-month business.

And three more contracts collapsed at a cost to Taylor & Sons of £3m. – Daily Mail

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