THE former owners of Pound Empire in Birchwood Shopping Centre have been banned from acting as company directors for failing to keep accounts over cheques worth £900,000 that were paid out.

Javed-Yacub Fozdar, aged 38, and Riyaz Dawood Fozdar, aged 37, both from Manchester ran the budget shop line with outlets in Stockport, Manchester, Liverpool and Warrington,

Pound Empire entered liquidation in January 2012 with debts of £611,187, but the inadequate accounts lead to an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

It found the failure to keep proper accounts meant the income and expenditure of the company could not be determined.

It was not possible to establish how much money the directors had taken before Pound Empire stopped trading.

The IS also found much of the stock and other assets were transferred to a company owned by Javed Fozdar's wife.

As a result, the assets were not made available to the creditors

Both Javed and Riyaz Fozdar have been disqualified from acting as company directors for 10 years.

Robert Clarke, head of Insolvent Investigations North at the Insolvency Service said:

“Without a full account of transactions it is impossible to determine whether a director has discharged his duties properly, or is using a lack of documentation as a cloak for inpropriety.

“The transfer of all the assets of the company to a connected party is a clear breach of the duties directors owe their creditors."