Hasan Nawaz’s bankruptcy ends in April 2025

LONDON: Hasan Nawaz’s bankruptcy will end on 29 April 2025, according to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) which originally filed for his bankruptcy.

The automatic discharge will apply on 29 April 2025, exactly a year after Hasan Nawaz was declared bankrupt at the Rolls Building in London High Court’s Insolvency and Companies Court in a case of personal tax liabilities.

An HMRC spokesperson said it cannot share details of Hasan Nawaz case due to “confidentiality laws” but suggested that it decided to file the bankruptcy petition after exhausting all other options during their negotiations, which stretched for over three years.

The spokesman for the HMRC explained: “We take a supportive approach to dealing with customers who have tax debts and only file winding-up petitions once we’ve exhausted all other options, in order to protect taxpayers money.”

Sources told this correspondent that Hasan’s tax issue started with the HMRC in around 2020 when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was in power in Pakistan. Although, the PTI govt had nothing to do with the case, a credible source, who was a part of the govt then, shared with this reporter that the UK govt sources had shared with Pakistan that it was looking into a tax related matter of Hasan Nawaz.

Both sides engaged in lengthy correspondence over the tax liability issue of one of Hasan’s companies.

The source said the total amount HMRC asked Hasan Nawaz to pay was under £1 million but he refused, maintaining that he was being asked to pay for the tax liability of a dormant company. The exact amount involved couldn’t be verified but two sources said it was under £1 million.

The same sources said Hasan Nawaz maintained that he had suffered losses in his business after the Brexit and the Covid lockdown but the HMRC refused to accept the stance and finally the matter reached the court.

The HMRC took the case to London High Court’s Insolvency division on 25 August 2023. The bankruptcy petition was first heard by Judge Jones on 4 December 2023 at the Rolls Building. Completely unrelated to this case, he is the same judge who had made a decision in favour of MQM-Pakistan in Altaf Hussain’s properties case.

The second hearing took place on 26 February 2024 before Chief Inspector and Companies Court Judge Briggs. The third hearing took place on 29 April 2024 before Judge Mullen -- where the judge decided to declare bankruptcy for Hasan Nawaz after his lawyers told the court he would file for personal bankruptcy.

Hasan Nawaz’s bankruptcy will end in under half a year but it will show up on all financial records for around six years and then it goes away. Hasan continues to be director of a number of companies in the UK.

The UK’s Companies House record shows him as a Pakistani national. Two companies previously run by him – Flagship Developments Limited and Harstone Properties Limited – have been dissolved.

Hasan Nawaz’s currently active companies are Quint Paddington Limited, Quint Gloucester Place Limited, Flagship Securities Limited and Que Holdings Limited.

Hasan Nawaz has not responded to queries but a legal source familiar with the case said, “There was no probe into any criminality because there was no fraudulent or criminal activity and there no money laundering. This was purely a civil dispute case.”