Owners of Picsel face US court hearing

PICSEL Technologies, a Glasgow-based mobile phone software company, has become embroiled in a US federal court action involving its founders and alleged financial irregularities.

The former chief operating officer of Picsel in the Americas, Bill Vanke, says the suit soon to be heard by North Californian District Court alleges problems associated with the firm going into administration last October.

Vanke, who now works as managing director of Micro Medic, Durham, North Carolina, is due to attend a hearing this month.

Vanke, who is also a private investor with Falconbridge Group of Texas, confirmed the court action from his US base. He is joined by several other former employees in the court action against Imran Khand and Masood Jabbar.

They allege that Picsel's owners did not include any of the non-UK entities as bankrupt and that creditors, employees, landlords and other stakeholders in the business are owed money from those parts of the business.

Picsel was launched in 1998 and its mobile phone software is used in more than 250 million devices globally.

The company was sold to its former managers last October after falling into the arms of administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers last July after failure to pay its staff their wages.

At the time of the MBO joint administrator Graham Frost of PWC described it as "an exceptionally challenging situation and complex sale," adding: "We took the view that a going concern sale represented the best opportunity for recovery to the creditors."