The Strange Life of One Company at 80 Sidney Street.

80 Sidney Street, Folkestone Kent, is an address where over 4300 companies have been registered and/or are registered. One of the companies which started of life at Sidney Street was a company called Inspire Art Ltd.

Inspire Art Ltd was incorporated on the 28 July 2000, it’s sole Director was a one Mr. Erik Koen. In 2003 Inspire Art Ltd had ended up in the European Court of Justice, the case being about their registered office, central administration  and their principal place of business within the Community (EU) – was it Holland or the UK – the ECJ ruled Inspire Art could pursue activities in other Member States through an agency, branch or subsidiary.

If we go back a bit to 2001 and take a look at the annual-return-2001 we can see a company which goes by the name of Haag Juristen College (Cyprus) Ltd (in English, Hague Jurist College (HJC)) on page 4 of the document.  Many of the companies which were set up at Sidney Street had dealings with HJC.

The man behind HJC was a one Toine Manders the former Chairman of the Dutch Libertarian Party(pictured) who appears in the Panama Papers who “see’s it as your moral duty to evade your taxes as much as possible.”  Manders is awaiting trial for being involved in a criminal organisation and charges of tax evasion and capital protection. HJC used a company called HJC Interim Limited at 80 Sidney Street and had many more than 163 companies registered there. HJC Interim Ltd was also registered in Cyprus and its address appears in the Panama Papers. Manders is due in court early this year.

Moving on, the company Inspire Art Ltd changed its name to Zonnedaal Nederland Limited on the 4th Oct 2005. On the 16th Nov 2005, the company moves it’s address from 80 Sidney Street to 7 Ablemarle Street London. On the 21st Sept 2007 Zonnedaal Nederland Ltd again moves address to 12 Plumtree Court London and gets a whole new load of directors and shareholders (see page 5) as well.

One of the Shareholders is Mittal Investments S.A.R.L (Luxembourg a known tax haven). Mittal Investments Sarl is the private investment arm of the Mittal group, which acquires and holds interests in enterprises, and participates in the administration, development and management of such holdings. It is 100% owned by Lakshmi N Mittal (pictured) and his family and holds diversified business interests in the steel and oil and gas sectors. Mr Mittal was ranked the 11th wealthiest man in Britain, with £7.12bn in cash and assets. according to the  Sunday Times Rich List 2016

Zonnedaal Nederland Ltd was dissolved as a company on the 20/11/2014.

Inspire Art Ltd is a company which started life at 80 Sidney Street, created an ECJ ruling, was involved with a man involved in possible tax evasion (Manders),  changed its name ,directors and shareholders  and ended up belonging to one of the richest men in the UK.  There are many other companies who start their life at 80 Sidney Street and then morph into other companies which help and assist the rich and you’ll be hearing about them in the forthcoming weeks and months as some of our investigations into the companies at 80 Sidney Street, come to fruition.

There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. We do not intend to suggest or imply that any persons, companies or other entities included in this blog post have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly.