Linus Dignam

Introduction

Linus Dignam is a former director of Linus Services Ltd, a company incorporated in September 2015, who was disqualified as a company director for 9 years with effect from 30 June 2026. The Insolvency Service’s public register of disqualified directors, which carries the case under the company’s registered number 09774995, records that on 15 July 2020 he caused the company to breach the terms and conditions of the Bounce Back Loan scheme by overstating its turnover on a loan application, resulting in the company receiving more funds than it was entitled to. He declared £200,000 of turnover for 2019 against prepared accounts showing £44,513; the company received the full £50,000 when it was entitled to £15,294 at most, and entered creditors’ voluntary liquidation in September 2023 with £51,286 still owed on the loan.

Background Information

The Bounce Back Loan scheme is described in the register entry itself: the criteria allowed a company to borrow between £2,000 and a maximum of £50,000, based on 25% of the company’s turnover in calendar year 2019 or, where a business was established after 1 January 2019, its estimated turnover. As with the wider scheme, the turnover figure was supplied by the applicant company on the application form, and the size of the loan rose directly with whatever number was declared.

Linus Services Ltd was incorporated on 14 September 2015 and commenced trading from October 2015, so its entitlement fell to be assessed on a full year of actual trading. The company’s own prepared accounts supplied the benchmark: the accounts for the year ended 30 September 2019 show a turnover of £44,513, and the accounts for the year ended 30 September 2020 show £61,176. On the scheme’s formula even the more favourable of those two figures would not have supported a £50,000 loan — the register’s calculation is that the company was entitled to a Bounce Back Loan of £15,294 at most. The entry, stated as correct as at 10 June 2026, ties the findings to company number 09774995.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Director disqualified for 9 years over an overstated Bounce Back Loan. The disqualification order starts on 30 June 2026 and runs for 9 years.

The application came on 15 July 2020, when Mr Dignam applied to a financial institution for a £50,000 Bounce Back Loan on behalf of Linus Services Ltd. The application asked the company to provide details of its turnover for the calendar year 2019, and he stated on the form that the turnover was £200,000. The company’s prepared accounts for the year ended 30 September 2019 showed £44,513 — the declared figure was roughly four and a half times what the company’s own accounts recorded, and even against the following year’s £61,176 it bore no relation to the business’s scale. The register’s stated finding is that by this overstatement he caused the company to breach the scheme’s terms and conditions, resulting in Services receiving more funds than it was entitled to.

The financial effect was immediate and precisely quantified. The £50,000 of loan funds was paid into the company’s bank account on 16 July 2020, the day after the application, and the register calculates that the company thereby received £34,706 more than it was entitled to from the scheme. The case is in that sense a straightforward comparison of accounts against application: the company’s prepared accounts existed and contradicted the declared figure several times over. What the entry does not record is any use of the funds for the company’s benefit — its narrative moves directly from the overpayment to the company’s eventual failure, with the loan unpaid at the end.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The consequence recorded on the register is the 9-year disqualification starting 30 June 2026. The company’s own ending is set out in the same entry: Linus Services Ltd entered creditors’ voluntary liquidation on 1 September 2023, three years after the loan was drawn. At liquidation its liabilities totalled £51,398, of which £51,286 was due in respect of the outstanding Bounce Back Loan. The loan was thus not merely the largest creditor claim but effectively the whole of the insolvent estate — all but £112 of the company’s liabilities at liquidation related to the inflated loan — and nothing in the entry records any repayment of it. The ban of 9 years sits within the range the Insolvency Service has sought for overstated pandemic loan applications.

Current Status

The disqualification order starts on 30 June 2026 and runs to June 2035. For that period Mr Dignam is barred from acting as a director of a UK company or being involved in its management, which is the effect recorded in the register entry. The entry remains publicly accessible on the Insolvency Service’s disqualified directors register, stated as correct as at 10 June 2026, so the declared figure of £200,000, the accounts figures of £44,513 and £61,176, and the resulting overpayment of £34,706 stay attached to his name and searchable by anyone. The liquidation of Linus Services Ltd continues as the vehicle in which the £51,286 owed on the loan falls to be dealt with; the register records no amount repaid.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A 9-year disqualification reaching into 2035 follows from a single application form on which the company’s actual accounts were contradicted several times over, and the register entry’s arithmetic makes the gap legible: £200,000 declared, £44,513 recorded, £15,294 of entitlement, £50,000 received. The case sits within the wider enforcement pattern in which directors who overstated self-certified turnover have been banned for the overpayment their declarations produced. The company he incorporated in September 2015 lasted eight years from incorporation and three from the loan before entering creditors’ voluntary liquidation. For Mr Dignam the findings are public and dated, and until June 2035 he cannot lawfully hold a directorship or manage a UK company.

Sources

• The Insolvency Service, “Disqualified Director Details: Case details for Linus Dignam” — source