Fund Accounts - Help explain this.

However I did find this from the Liverpool Daily Post on Sep 26 2007 taken from http://www.mccannfiles.com/id58.html

On not producing a full breakdown of the costs, she (Esther McVeigh) added: "We are doing what every charity does. We are going by best practice charity rules."

That certainly seems to be one of the directors of the not charity presenting it as a charity.

I see from that page they are using Infohost for the website. Seems they are using Maddie on their website and have a page dedicated to it.


There is also something I don't understand with their accounts. They are showing £0 sales and £0 profit for 2008/2009.


http://companycheck.co.uk/company/SC247151

I see from looking up the fund at Companies House that the accounts are due to be filed by 31st December 2011.

As most auditors will be closed after tomorrow until the New Year, we can but hope that the accounts are filed tomorrow to avoid the McCanns being fined for late filing; money which would be better spent looking for Madeleine.

Perhaps the delay this year is due to detailed accounts being prepared which state clearly where the money went and which lawyers got what; the auditors may be waiting on their clients to provide the necessary information.

The directors, who include both McCanns and Uncle Brian, must be agonising over the wording of their report which is part of the accounts. Do they admit that in the year under review they lost twice to Snr Amaral (October 2010 and March 2011) and do they comment on the costs of these court cases?

Yes, I am looking forward to reading these accounts.

Marian, you have just ruined my sleep tonight!

I will be so worried about the fines for late filing of the Fund accounts and how that money could have been spent searching and sueing.

But the McCanns have friends in high places so hopefully they will not have to pay the fines. Why should a 'not for profit' have to be bothered about late filing? The bureaucrats should remember a little girl is missing and have a heart. And these auditors may work over Xmas to finalise the accounts and get them in by the end of December. And like Carter-Ruck they probably don't get paid for a lot of the work they do (source the truthful book).

I'm pretty sure that Kate is typing them up as we speak.

The trial balance is very confusing and well, she is of course working very hard as usual.

But it's the BIK that will have really caused confusion. Em er rem, a personal benefit is taxable but what are the implications of a limited company receiving a BIK, all those freebies have got to be a bookkeeper's nightmare. Are CR killing them with kindness and if so was it personal or business related?

pauline wrote:Marian, you have just ruined my sleep tonight!

I will be so worried about the fines for late filing of the Fund accounts and how that money could have been spent searching and sueing.

But the McCanns have friends in high places so hopefully they will not have to pay the fines. Why should a 'not for profit' have to be bothered about late filing? The bureaucrats should remember a little girl is missing and have a heart. And these auditors may work over Xmas to finalise the accounts and get them in by the end of December. And like Carter-Ruck they probably don't get paid for a lot of the work they do (source the truthful book).

I wouldn't lose any sleep Marian, conveniently a story emerge just two days ago about the cosy arrangement these lovely companies have with the revenue.

BBC Cosy Arrangements

I am pretty sure they will be cut lots of slack in case it causes unnecessary stress and anguish to this poor couple. Remember they have also had the trauma of the Leveson inquiry.

Upon a further check of Companies House I see that two documents were filed on 21st December - Alterations to Memorandum & Articles and Statement of Company Objects.

I thought it was the accounts that were due. Perhaps someone with legal knowledge (don't even think about it Xavier!) would like to take a look at these documents.

Marian wrote:Upon a further check of Companies House I see that two documents were filed on 21st December - Alterations to Memorandum & Articles and Statement of Company Objects.

I thought it was the accounts that were due. Perhaps someone with legal knowledge (don't even think about it Xavier!) would like to take a look at these documents.

Accounts to 31st March 2008 were filed 31st January 2009
Accounts to 31st March 2009 were filed 2nd February 2010
Accounts to 31st March 2010 were filed 21st December 2010 (twice)

Also something new on the companies house website

23rd December 2011 - CC04 Statement of Company's Objects


The current objects of the McCanns limited company are

To secure the safe return to her family of Madeleine McCann who was abducted in Praia da Luz, Portugal on Thursday 3rd May 2007;
To procure that Madeleine's abduction is thoroughly investigated and that her abductors, as well as those who played or play any part in assisting them, are identified and brought to justice; and
To provide support, including financial assistance, to Madeleine's family.

Addition: If the above objects are fulfilled then the objects of the Foundation shall be to pursue such purposes in similar cases arising in the United Kingdom, Portugal or elsewhere.

Question is WHAT are the changes going to be?

23rd December 2011 - RES01 RESOLUTION TO ADOPT/ALTER MEMORANDUM AND ARTICLES (last done on 30th June 2007)

Summary of what this means

Articles of association may be altered through special resolution. The shareholders voting in favour of the resolution must do so using their power to vote bona fides for the benefit of the company.
Any alteration must be made in good faith for the benefit of the company as a whole: Sidebottom v Kershaw, Leese & Co [1920] 1 Ch 154, CA. This means the company as an entity, or as the interest of ‘an individual hypothetical member’: Greenhalgh v Arderne Cinemas Ltd [1951] Ch 286 at 291, [1950] 2 All ER 1120.
It is for the shareholders to determine whether or not the alteration is for the benefit of the company. The alteration may affect the rights of a member as between himself and the company by retrospective operation, since the shares are held subject to the statutory power of altering the articles.
If a contract whether with a member or an outsider is so drawn as by its terms or implication to prohibit the company from altering its articles to the prejudice of the other contracting party, then, although the company cannot be precluded from altering its articles, thereby giving itself power to act upon the provisions of the altered articles, so to act may nevertheless be a breach of the contract.
The articles cannot be so altered as to increase the liability of a member to contribute to share capital or otherwise to pay money to the company without his consent; and a special resolution altering articles may be impeached if its effect is to discriminate between the majority of shareholders and the minority shareholders so as to give the former an advantage of which the latter are deprived. In a case where an order by the court by way of protection of a member of the company against unfair prejudice requires the company not to make any, or any specified, alteration in its articles, the company has no power without leave of the court to make any such alteration."

Wonder what they are altering?


I haven't got it in my subscription to read these documents sadly.

Wow, Gillyspot, that's v.v.v. interesting. One hopes the objects of the company aren't going to change to 'suing the pants of everyone who disagrees with us'.

Why do they have to be so damn secretive with everything they do? And they wonder why people don't trust them.

It will come out I am sure. The object statement will have to be changed on the website at least.

Or is the new object going to be to share the donations with other missing children (what do you think Bob Hope or No Hope)

I think the new objective will be the mccanns actually doing some searching for their daughter

In their 2008 accounts they have a listing of Media Monitoring £26.113. Seems like and awful lot, I thought that was something you had in business to track advertising done by competitors. Not sure why a search fund would need it.

The real gem is fund professional fee's £36,070 and fund legal fees of £68,799. Over £100,000 or about 10% of the money has been spent on legal and professional fee's of some kind. That doesn't include accountants either.

I think the next company objective will be to clear the internet of us lowlife trolls. Now that they have the media whipped into shape

We are not trolls...we are Ghouls...One of our MP's has told us

jd wrote:We are not trolls...we are Ghouls...One of our MP's has told us

We are "Ghouls" and it is not even halloween.

aquila wrote:

Pershing36 wrote:In their 2008 accounts they have a listing of Media Monitoring £26.113. Seems like and awful lot, I thought that was something you had in business to track advertising done by competitors. Not sure why a search fund would need it.
The real gem is fund professional fee's £36,070 and fund legal fees of £68,799. Over £100,000 or about 10% of the money has been spent on legal and professional fee's of some kind. That doesn't include accountants either.

bloody disgraceful isn't it? I notice the Christmas appeal is low key.

I suspect "Media Monitoring" covers Carter-Ruck watching this forum for the sole purpose of harassing TB. As has been posted elsewhere, on one particular day they were on line here for 10 HOURS. That is a lot of office time, even if an intern is doing it, and as we all know, every minute of solicitor's time has to be charged to someone, somewhere.

Well, Kate assures us that Carter-Ruck provide some of their services free of charge! Seriously though, this forum didn't start till late 2009 so the accounts for 2008 couldn't have included the cost of employing spies.

There were other fora. Anorak was where I started, and where I first met TB.

Marian wrote:Well, Kate assures us that Carter-Ruck provide some of their services free of charge! Seriously though, this forum didn't start till late 2009 so the accounts for 2008 couldn't have included the cost of employing spies.

But the forum of the Daily Mirror, the Daily Express, and the 3-Arguido, they were there from almost the start date. We know that they watched the Daily Mirror, because Clarence said so. He boasted that he got it shut down, when he made a lecture about PR campaign at the LSE.

www.lse.ac.uk/polis - there is a pod cast of the lecture here.
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/channels/publicLecturesAndEvents/player.aspx?id=221

The strangest one I think however is they only spent £204 in postage 2008. For such a high profile campaign that is nothing. Only equates to a few hundred first class stamps.

Pershing36 wrote:The strangest one I think however is they only spent £204 in postage 2008. For such a high profile campaign that is nothing. Only equates to a few hundred first class stamps.

Agree very low postage costs. And those stamps could have been on threatening letters to Tony, media etc

They didn't sell many wristbands then

Pershing36 wrote:The strangest one I think however is they only spent £204 in postage 2008. For such a high profile campaign that is nothing. Only equates to a few hundred first class stamps.

But they didn't use one of the stamps to write a letter to the PP to ask for the process to be reopened?