EY faces questions over Britishvolt land sale

Administrators at EY face tough questions over the sale of Britishvolt’s site in Northumberland. EY sold the assets of the collapsed gigafactory company to to Australia-based Recharge Industries, but Recharge failed to stump up the £8.57m it had promised. The real prize was the land, thought to be the only site in the country with planning permission for a gigafactory and an agreement to connect to undersea power from Norway. But the land is mortgaged to a separate firm, and Northumberland Council has the right to buy it back next year. EY was not only administrator but an adviser to Britishvolt from before its collapse, and was owed around £4m in fees. An insolvency practitioner said: “If you have signed off the business plan and that plan has failed, and then you profit from becoming the office holder in the insolvency, is there not a conflict of interest?” The Times (£)