There has been no official confirmation as to whether E-Clear met its noon deadline on Friday to prove it has the £35 million owed to Globespan, but new administrators are understood to have been lined up. The credit-card processing firm will face a winding up order in the High Court on Tuesday after PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the administrator for Globespan, claimed it had been unable to verify if E-Clear still had £35 million it owed the Scottish operator. An E-Clear spokesman said he was unable to comment on whether it was able to meet Friday’s deadline and that it would not be saying anything until tomorrow’s court case. The Globespan failure has led to calls from Scottish politicians for an inquiry into the collapse and the role E-Clear played. Court papers filed last week revealed the amount E-Clear was holding rocketed from £6 million at the beginning of 2008 to £35 million by November. Originally, KPMG had been lined up to carry out the E-Clear administration if the court action was successful, but now it is believed Begbies Traynor have been called in after a conflict of interest was discovered. Begbies Traynor had been in early discussions before the collapse of Allbury Travel Group – a company linked to E-Clear through chief executive Elias Elia who also controlled Allbury, the parent of operator Libra – but was not appointed the administrator. Meanwhile, E-Clear advisory board chairman and former Conservative Party chairman backer Edward Du Cann has hit back at other firms owed money by E-Clear for blaming their woes on the credit card firm, and accused PwC of encouraging them to publicly criticise it. Speaking to the Scotland on Sunday he claimed firms were jumping on the bandwagon and not telling the full story. He added Globespan would have failed in 2007 had it not been for E-Clear. However, PwC said E-Clear had been given ample opportunity to prove it had the Globespan money and that pressing for a winding up order was only taken as a last-resort measure. Court documents revealed how E-Clear also owed money to accommodation-only supplier youtravel.com, Canadian operator Go Travel and Swimming Nature, an operator of packages including swimming lessons. Travel Weekly revealed in December how Totally Travel, the tour operator and cruise retailer chaired by Harry Goodman, had a £200,000 debt repaid after threatening E-Clear that it would seek a winding up order. Another Canadian firm, Sunwing, which supported E-Clear’s successful bid for an adjournment of the administration in court last week, is also understood to be owed a significant sum. Sunwing entered a strategic alliance with TUI Travel last year but the E-Clear debt is understood to remain with the original owners of Sunwing.
No comment from E-Clear as £35m deadline passes
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