Nyef Kalaf

Introduction

Nyef Kalaf is a company director, the sole director of Sponj Bob Car Wash Ltd (“Sponj Bob”), a car wash business based in Wolverhampton, who was disqualified from acting as a company director for 5 years after his company was found to have employed an individual who did not have the right to work in the UK. The Insolvency Service found that Kalaf breached his legal duties as a director by failing to ensure that Sponj Bob complied with its statutory obligations under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. His disqualification order starts on 1 September 2026.

Background Information

Kalaf was the sole director of Sponj Bob Car Wash Ltd at the time of the breaches of the 2006 Act, meaning responsibility for the company’s compliance with immigration law rested with him alone. Employers in the UK are required under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 to carry out prescribed right-to-work checks on the people they employ, and a company that fails to do so exposes itself to civil penalties from the Home Office for each worker found to be working illegally. The Insolvency Service’s register entry records that Kalaf failed to provide sufficient records to evidence that Sponj Bob carried out proper checks in compliance with its statutory obligations, resulting in the employment of one person who did not have the right to work, or the right to work for the tasks they were performing.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Director disqualified after Immigration Enforcement found a worker with no right to work. The disqualification order starts on 1 September 2026.

On 28 June 2024, Home Office Immigration Enforcement visited Sponj Bob’s trading premises and identified an individual who was not eligible to work in the UK. As a result, Immigration Enforcement issued a Notification of Liability for a Civil Penalty of £45,000 in respect of the employment of that one worker, with payment due on or before 11 September 2024. The company did not pay the penalty, and the Insolvency Service’s later finding was that Sponj Bob’s failure to comply with its obligations under the 2006 Act had resulted in the employment of a person with no right to work — or no right to work for the tasks they were performing — and that Kalaf, as sole director, had failed to ensure the company met its legal duties. At liquidation on 6 December 2024, Sponj Bob had liabilities of £45,000, all of which related to the outstanding civil penalty.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The consequence of the Insolvency Service’s investigation is a 5-year disqualification for Kalaf, accepted on the register as a director who breached his legal duties by leaving his company out of compliance with immigration employment law. The penalty regime behind the case is deliberately heavy: £45,000 for a single worker is the Home Office’s standard measurement of liability for employing someone with no right to work, and Sponj Bob’s failure to pay it followed the company into liquidation, where it constituted the entirety of the business’s liabilities. Illegal working enforcement at car washes, nail bars and similar cash-intensive businesses has been a recurring focus of Immigration Enforcement operations, and the disqualification register now records the car wash director’s conduct publicly alongside the penalty he left unpaid. The register entry notes its information was correct as at 12 August 2026.

Current Status

Kalaf is subject to an active 5-year disqualification that began on 1 September 2026 and runs to September 2031. Throughout that period he is banned from acting as a director of, or directly or indirectly taking part in the promotion, formation or management of, any company registered in the UK without the permission of the court, and breaching the order is a criminal offence. Sponj Bob Car Wash Ltd went into liquidation on 6 December 2024 with the £45,000 immigration penalty unpaid, and the register records that the company therefore never complied with its requirements under the 2006 Act. No appeal against the disqualification and no separate criminal proceedings are recorded on the register entry.

Impact on Their Career/Life

For the remainder of the ban, Kalaf cannot legally run or manage a company in the UK — a 5-year exclusion from the entire formal economy for someone whose recorded business activity was a single car wash business. The finding against him is not a technicality: it rests on the discovery of a worker with no right to work on his premises, a failure to produce evidence of any proper right-to-work checks, and a £45,000 penalty that was never paid. His case now forms part of the public record of Insolvency Service disqualifications arising from illegal-working findings, a category of enforcement that has grown as the Home Office and the Insolvency Service pursue directors personally for compliance failures that companies absorb as unpaid penalties in liquidation. The register entry carrying the finding is public and permanent.

Sources

• Insolvency Service, “Disqualified Director Details: Nyef Kalaf” — source