Monthly Archives: May 2019

Hot Business News Today

Business owners could sue banks that drove them into bankruptcy

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Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Small business owners who feel they’ve been unfairly treated by high-street banks may be able to sue them for the first time.
Banks including Clydesdale, Lloyds and RBS allegedly drove thousands of businesses to the wall after making inappropriate loans, and then supposedly asset stripped those businesses for millions of pounds once they were insolvent. RBS in particular has been singled out for criticism — its department set up to help businesses in trouble in fact dismantled 90pc of SMEs referred to it.
In an unprecedented move, MPs have petitioned the Supreme Court to change the law on “reflective loss”. If successful, many business owners will be able to sue their banks for pushing them into insolvency.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Fair Business Banking intervened in an ongoing Supreme Court case on Tuesday, the first time an APPG has made such a move.
Kevin Hollinrake MP, co-chair of the APPG on Fair Business Banking, told Small Business: “SMEs may be able to sue banks that put them in an unwinnable situation.”
Grossly unfair
The APPG has intervened because of what it sees as a grossly unfair situation. At present, if a company falls into insolvency it moves

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Hot Business News Today

Social enterprise Q&A – Commonwealth table tennis medallist Colin Wilson

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Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
Setting up a social enterprise has its challenges, particularly when it comes to finding space, funding and attracting customers.
It is entirely possible and incredibly rewarding when you get it right, though.
To find out more about how it’s done – and its ongoing challenges – Small Business spoke to double Commonwealth medal-winning table tennis player, Colin Wilson. He explains how he set up his table tennis centre, Corby Smash.
Why did you want to set up Corby Smash?
Firstly, I wanted to see whether you could make a table tennis centre which was full service – providing for beginners, disabled people and people with mental health issues, right up to developing international players.
Getting a long tenure is a challenge I’m also keen to take on. We’d rather that than be based in a community centre where the next April it can be taken away and transformed into something different.
The third reason is that I wanted to see if the centre can break even. Is it financially sustainable in the long-term? If successful, it could be replicated by other table tennis fanatics or entrepreneurs. The participation and membership of table tennis could increase ten-fold.
Take-up of table tennis

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