Fugitive’s company closed down over $1.69M debt
Ryan Bateman
(CNS Business): A company owned by a man wanted by local police for a violent crime has been wound up by the Grand Court after a creditor in the British Virgin Islands tried and failed for more than six months to get back almost $1.7 million he had on account with B & C Capital Ltd. Ryan Bateman, the firm’s sole director, was on remand in Cayman for a GBH charge in relation to an alleged assault on his girlfriend when he left the Cayman Islands some two years ago in 2014. The crown has not sought Bateman’s extradition and his exact whereabouts are unknown. A Canadian national, he was believed to be in Panama last year and more recently in Florida.
His company, however, is now in the hands of local liquidators, Chris Johnson and Graham Robinson, who are looking for assets it may still have that can be sold to fund the outstanding debt.
Earlier this month CIMA cancelled Bateman’s directorship after the regulator found he was “carrying on business in a manner detrimental to the public interest” and was “not a fit and proper person to hold a position as a registered director”.
The BVI-based creditor began asking for payments from the account he had with Bateman’s company in June last year but in December, after the requests had been ignored, the creditor asked for the full balance. The creditor said that throughout December “multiple spurious excuses” were advanced by B & C Capital about why the money could not be wired to the account holder. After a statutory demand was issued in April and the cash was still not forthcoming, the winding up proceedings began.
The latest legal difficulty for Bateman is one of a number of court actions he is facing, including lawsuits filed by companies in Belize and Bermuda over outstanding debts.
Category: Finance, Financial Services
These financial scammers need to be indicted in the great USA then we won’t have to worry about justice not being served e.g. Bernie Madoff and Sir Allan Stanford. The USA will deal with him and his associates in time. Not to worry the USA will find them whenever they want them.
His Florida home and office addresses, drivers license, etc iare easily obtainable with an online search. Cayman could easily get him but obviously thinks prosecuting fraudsters results in bad PR.
As of Q2 2016 there were 37 Regulated Securities Investment Business License holders. Which means only 37 SIBL entities under CIMA’s watch for securities business.
Bateman was an “Excluded Person” under SIBL which means he paid (or in his case didn’t pay) a CI$5,000 fee and filled out a 1 page return every year. As of Q2 there were 2,423 Excluded Persons undertaking Securities Business in the Cayman Islands.
Most of the 2.423 are undoubtedly good but the issue is CIMA doesn’t really know what anyone is up to and if even 1% of the Excluded Persons are bad we would have too large a number of bad actors operating in Cayman.
Even worse is that some people/firms in other jurisdictions believe that registering under SIBL as an Excluded Person means the entity is regulated here. Clearly this is not the case.
CIMA needs to survey and analyze all of the Excluded Persons before we have more incidents like Bateman!
Cayman has the most mobile white-collar criminals who are protected and harbored on such tiny islands; All in the name of money and clout. With evidence stacked high at the RCIPS and at the Courthouse, often nothing is ever done to prosecute these offenders. No arrests. No extraditions. No restitution. No sentencing. Instead many [criminals] enjoy the free-spirited movement that suggest the they are either fearless, invincible or exempt from prosecution – and rightfully so. Why? The Cayman Islands has well crafted a system of gerrymandering due processes, aiding & abetting criminals, and employing a habit of inaction (to enforce the law) and unfair adjudication of white-collar cases; which is frankly, in and of itself, CRIMINAL!
This guy Bateman along with his entourage of alleged co-conspirators, locally & abroad, should all be in jail awaiting trial, not secretly traveling in and around the Atlantic or into North America with no (reliable) record of immigration or customs declaration of their entry or exit from jurisdictions visited in the past 12 months or their whereabouts.
The Cayman Islands Government and Law Enforcement Team are the only ones to blame for this laughably pathetic “criminal friendly” justice system.
Amen! Very well said! There is such little interest in fair and equitable pursuit, prosecution, and sentencing of criminals in this jurisdiction. Sure the white collar criminals are generally allowed to run amok and develop a sense of entitlement to such treatment.
Cayman looks worse for being an enabler of this kind of criminal conduct by not vigorously pursuing and prosecuting these crimes. People outside of Cayman also read our online news sites In the same manner that I read USA, UK, and other Caribbean island news sites. We are becoming our own worse public relations people.
These don’t sound like loans or debts, these sound like commingled securities account deposits that were absconded. Another CIMA SIBL-exempt classic.
You’re right. I call it the “Depositors-Creditors Framework”. It is one of best lies and court-rulings that are presented to save reputations and mitigate risk of additional prosecutions elsewhere. It happens all too often. Remember, Cayman is undoubtedly a ‘Tax Haven’.
Maybe there should be a ‘ Judicial Review’ of the Judicial system here. There are just too many instances when expats facing charges are allowed to leave the Islands and refuse to return; what is even worse is that in some instances no efforts are even made to seek their return.Some might wonder if there exists different systems for locals and some expats. This even suggests the possibility of corruption, for example did someone get rewarded for not pursuing the return of these individuals? One would hope not, but a judicial review would clear that up. Another suggestion would be to streamline the law to allow ‘Trial in absentia’ and allow for “refusal to return” to be accepted as an admission of guilt or at the very least to infer a suggestion of guilt.
For sure there is one rule for Caymankind and another for expats! Just as Michelle Bouchard and Canover Watson as 2 examples. THen look at all the other hand slaps that Caymanians get for embezzling from their employers. Released after the slap tp get another job to do it again!! (ie recent travel agent scammer. Her scam has followed her as long as I have known her)
9.51am You forgot to mention the hand slaps that are given by many expat bosses to expat workers who steal from them. These are often sent home without any attempt at pressing charges and with a clean employment record.Why, because the boos man does not want his clients to think that he runs a loose ship. This means that the worker is free to return and repeat his previous behaviour.