Lol, nobody falls for a hustle like the Brits.

Data centres for shitty AI now is it? And how many people do those employ? And would they be local?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/15/britishvolt-gigafactory-site-sold-110m-us-private-equity-firm-blackstone-data-centre-northumberland
#UKPOL #UKpolitics #LLM #BritishVolt #Northumberland

You may recall a previous post about the problems at #battery start-up #BritishVolt (backer not completely paid bid price; unpaid wages etc.). Now a former employee has lodged a statutory demand for back pay, which if not paid in the next 21 days will likely trigger bankruptcy proceedings.

Its not a good look for the UK's attempt to be serious about investment in the #greentransition - it needs to me more than a seeming project to merely farm state-support (as many suspected it was!)

Q. what *is* going on at #Britishvolt?

Having been bought out of administration by an Australian entrepreneur, now it seems bills are unpaid & staff have not received wages for months.

Now staff suspect that owner David Collard is knowingly trading while insolvent (which can lead to fines & being banned from being a UK director).

Moreover, Collard has yet to completely pay the administrators for the firm...

If this is the future of a UK #batteries manufacturing sector then obscurity beckons

#Auspol #BritishVolt #ScaleFacilitation #RechargeIndustries #TaxFraud #WageTheft #DavidCollard #PwC

Businesses can always afford to spend big on acquisitions and pay their consultants to evade taxes but workers are always the first to be swindled.

“According to itvNews, “The Australian-American company that rode to the rescue of the failed Northumberland car battery business Britishvolt has failed to pay the final instalment in its purchase of the company”.

“Defiant, Scale Facilitation responded “we dispute we are in default”.

“The excuses from Scale are running thick. We can now reveal that the company raided in June by the ATO’s Serious Financial Crime Taskforce over an alleged $150 million tax fraud, has reportedly paid millions to PwC to provide tax advice on its Australian and UK businesses.”

50 New York employees haven’t been paid on time since Feb. CEO, ex-PwC partner David Collard first blamed ‘technical” issues with payroll’ then ‘a lack of cashflow’.
 

#MichaelWestMedia #MWM

Another month, another announcement of an #automotive #battery plant, this time in #Bridgewater, Somerset, to be built by #Tata for Jaguar Land Rover #electriccars.

There's the promise of a big chunk of #taxpayers support, and these is also a by-election there tomorrow (which is why the news has surfaced today, no doubt).

The Q. is will Tata make a better of job of getting this off the blocks than #Britishvolt did?

(Meanwhile the #Tories are also offering Tata Steel cash elsewhere....)

#Auspol #Batteries #BritishVolt
#DavidACollard’s Geelong company, Scale Facilitation, raided by the AFP, the ATO, and officers from the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce, over an “alleged taxation fraud” at [subsidiary] SaniteX.

“Marles’ electorate covers Avalon where Recharge Industries, a Scale subsidiary, is promising to build a battery ‘gigafactory’. So, why wouldn’t he and the Opposition leader give the Geelong-educated Collard, once the youngest partner at PwC partner, a morale boost, especially one with green-tinged ambitions across Australia, the UK and the US?

“But how could a small company established in 2019 with little track record, apart from flogging facemasks during the pandemic (how hard would that be?), afford to lease the entire floor of One World Trade Center, built on the site of the Twin Towers, and pay for Dutton to visit its glitzy Big Apple HQ?”

Also, he expects the Australian government will repay him for his investments. #Dodgy

From: @MichaelWestMedia
https://fairdinkum.one/@MichaelWestMedia/110692212246307392

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/01/wheres-the-money-questions-over-australian-company-scale-facilitation-britishvolt

If you're waiting for the #BritishVolt factory to be built in Northumberland, backed by £100m of #UKTaxpayers' money....I wouldn't hold your breath.
Did UK government do the full #DueDiligence dance before agreeing to that subsidy, I wonder?

‘800,000 car industry jobs at risk’ unless UK renegotiates #Brexit deal

All down to the #Conservative government. First for Johnson’s reckless #ToryBrexit and second because a personal feud between Johnson and Sunsk is what sunk #BritishVolt

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/business-economics/800000-car-industry-jobs-at-risk-unless-uk-renegotiates-brexit-deal-348757/