Undoubtedly some directors have committed first-party frauds by abusing the government’s financial Covid-19 support packages. Although set up in good faith, the structure of those packages coupled with the speed of their rollout unfortunately meant it was easy picking for bad actors. The most attractive was likely the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, not least because the borrower is required to self-declare that they meet the eligibility criteria, the government has provided a guarantee to the lenders for the borrower’s repayment and agreed to meet the interest payments for the first 12 months, and no collateral from the borrower is provided as security for repayment. Read more.