Judge tells firm: Show airline's missing £35m

A JUDGE yesterday gave the credit-card firm blamed for the collapse of airline Flyglobespan three days to prove it still holds £35 million belonging to the company.

Mr Justice Floyd, at the High Court in London, told E-Clear, the business that handled online payments to the Scottish company, that he must see evidence of the sum by Friday.

The ruling as part of a legal action against E-Clear by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the administrators of Flyglobespan and its parent company, Globespan, which went out of business before Christmas, leaving 4,500 travellers stranded.

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Floyd adjourned that hearing for a week yesterday, but warned E-Clear not to dispose of any monies in the meantime.

E-Clear's chief executive, Greek Cypriot entrepreneur Elias Elia, last weekend confirmed that his firm held 35m of Globespan's money when it went out of business. He said the airline was a "victim of the recession".

A spokesman for E-Clear said: "We have been given a great deal of inconsistent paperwork. We have asked PWC for greater clarity. So far this week, we have received 1m worth of claims for charge-backs. We have been shown nothing that suggests our risk is not the 35m we believe it to be."

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