Australian federal police have raided the offices – in a suspected tax fraud probe – of Scale Facilitation and SaniteX, owned by Australian entrepreneur David Collard, reports said. Recharge Industries, owned by Scale Facilitation, bought UK would-be battery maker Britishvolt out of administration in February.
Collard did not respond to BEST’s request for comment. Reports, first carried in The Australian newspaper, stated associates of Collard claimed the tax raid was due to a misunderstanding of the interaction between US and Australian tax filings and that “all parties were co-operating”.
A deadline for Recharge Industries to finalise and pay for the purchase of the site in Northumberland has been extended. The original date for completion was 31 March.
Insiders close to Recharge reportedly said that staff wages in Australia had gone unpaid for around two weeks but insisted those payments had now been made.
They said the company remained confident it could secure the funding to complete the purchase of the land near Blyth, England, in the next two to four weeks.
