Troubled mobile operator Lyca Mobile, which is a virtual network operator (MVNO) on EE’s platform in the UK, has suffered another major blow this week after the tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), filed a winding-up petition in the courts against their UK business on Monday.
Just for those who may be unfamiliar with this process, a Winding Up Petition (WUP) is a legal action that is usually taken by a creditor or creditors, which in this case is HMRC, against a company that owes them money. Such petitions are an expensive approach and so are usually only considered as a last resort (i.e. when all other approaches to settle a debt have failed).
The move, as first reported by City AM, comes shortly after a Tax Tribunal ruled in HMRC’s favour over a £51m (aggregate) dispute related to the VAT treatment of customer “bundles” that were sold over a period of around 7 years (here). The company’s most recent accounts (here) noted that Lyca had made a provision of £99m to reflect their current best estimate of exposure.
The same accounts revealed that the operator, which has previously donated over £2.1m to the Conservative Party, had 1.7 million UK subscribers at the end of 2022, a churn rate of 9% and revenues of £145m (up from £138m). But they also made a loss after tax of £25.1m, which compares with a profit of £1.8m in 2021.
The accounts also included an independent auditor’s report from PKF Littlejohn, but the auditor stated that they had “not been able to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to provide a basis for an audit opinion” (i.e. they couldn’t sign off the accounts). Much of that related to the recoverability of a due balance of nearly £150m (here).
The balance included “£105,979,000 due from related parties“, as well as “£41,704,000 due from directors and parties associated with directors” and the “completeness and accuracy of the deferred income balance of £10,870,000” related to creditors.
The development follows last year’s cyberattack (here), recent problems with 5G connectivity (here) and the conviction of Lyca’s French entities for money laundering and VAT fraud – the latter is something the operator is appealing against. Not to mention some UK customers being hit by a spate of recent and suspicious card transactions, although Lyca has strongly denied any directly related breach of their own systems.
On top of all that, we’ve still got the outcome of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) investigation into last year’s cyberattack (data breach) to come. Suffice to say that Lyca’s customers may have some concerns about the company’s future and the state of their services going forward.