Indian-origin dentist in UK disqualified as company director

An Indian-origin dentist in the UK has been disqualified as a company director for seven years for spending over USD 1 million received from patients on a personally-owned property in France.

Tapeshwar Anand, 43, signed an undertaking, accepting that as a director of Q Healthcare Limited, a Harley Street-based dental clinic in London, he breached his fiduciary duties and failed to act in the best interest of the company and its creditors.

Anand was disqualified by the UK's Insolvency Service on Friday after he spent over one million pounds (USD 1.2 million) of company money, received from patients for dental treatment, on a personally-owned property in Combloux, France.
 

"The funds were spent between July 2009 and March 2013, resulting in the company falling into arrears with paying its liabilities to creditors," the Insolvency Service said.

Martin Gitner, Deputy Head of Investigations at the Insolvency Service said, "It is clear that Dr Anand breached his duties as a director by using company funds to finance the refurbishment of a personally owned property which means taxpayers and other creditors lose out considerably".

"This disqualification should serve as a warning that if directors behave in this way, their conduct will be investigated fully by the Insolvency Service and they will be removed from the business environment," Gitner said.

A disqualification order in the UK has the effect that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot act as a director of a company, take part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership, or be a receiver of a company's property.

Anand, who is now based in New Delhi, had earlier been removed from the UK's General Dental Council's (GDC) list of registered professionals following allegations of serious misconduct and poor performance in 2015.

Among the allegations he faced were that, in providing treatment, he failed to adequately discuss treatment plans with patients, failed to discuss treatment risks with patients and failed to obtain consent when changing treatment methods.

"Your clinical failings and deficient professional performance have not been remedied, and as such there remains a risk of repetition of the behaviour in the future," the GDC had noted.