Bosses guilty of 2.5m illegal calls hit with six year ban

Two directors of a company that bombarded consumers with more than 2.5 million automated calls have become the latest bosses to be banned from running a business after they failed to pay a £50,000 fine issued back in 2016.
The Insolvency Service has revealed that Allan Brown, of Coatbridge, Glasgow, and Kenneth Haswell of Lennoxtown, Glasgow, have both been disqualified for six years.
The move follows bans for Cold Call Elimination director Leah Masters, who was also disqualified for six years in February, and Reactiv Media boss Tony Abbott, who was barred for 12 years in January.
Brown and Haswell’s company, Nevis Home Improvements, was placed into liquidation in April last year after the Information Commissioner’s Office took the firm to Glasgow Sheriff Court for failing to pay the fine.
In 2016, an ICO investigation, prompted by 175 complaints, discovered that Nevis Home Improvements did not have consent to contact consumers, nor did it identify who had made the call.
However, the ICO still managed to trace the messages back to the company and found that it had instigated 2,530,549 automated calls between May and August 2015. Some 1,538,682 of them were connected. In the same year, the company signed a “record” shirt sponsorship deal with Scottish Premiership team Hamilton Academical FC (pictured). However, it was replaced by home improvements firm Superseal a year later.
At the time of the ICO ruling, assistant information commissioner for Scotland Ken Macdonald said: “If you don’t follow the rules, we will track you down and take action.”
In February this year, Decision Marketing launched a campaign calling on the Government to finally introduce legislation which will make directors of rogue marketing firms personally liable for fines.
The initiative, which has been backed by the ICO and the DMA, followed a Freedom of Information request which showed that out of the £7m in penalties issued for so-called nuisance calls and texts since 2015, nearly £5m remains unpaid.