Lycamobile from bankruptcy to Tax debts

Lycamobile is a popular wireless operator. Prepaid cards in particular are popular. However, the company had to declare bankruptcy as early as May. As the “Handelsblatt” reports, tax debts of around 70 million euros are the reason for this. In general, this case is very curious.

Lycamobile has long been in dispute with the German authorities. In 2013 Lycamobile Germany signed a contract with an Irish sister company. Consequently, the view was that you no longer have to pay sales tax in Germany because the services are no longer provided on your own behalf, but against a commission for the Irish sister company.

This was followed by numerous court hearings. They all came to the conclusion that Lycamobile was heavily taxed in Germany. The last verdict on this was in February 2021. From here, it gets even weirder. On May 7, Lycamobile Germany GmbH changed its name to Amalasandan Dienstleistungen GmbH. The bankruptcy petition followed on May 18.

When Interim Insolvency Administrator Jan Roth wanted to go to the office in June to speak to employees, he discovered that only the Bauer & Kollegen law firm is based at the address listed. Amalasandan is just a subtenant there. There are no employees on site. In any case, Lycamobile Managing Director Christopher Tooley has been the German subsidiary’s sole colleague for years. However, this is based in London. As an insolvency administrator, Roth now has the problem that he cannot access any documents.

Lycamobile, which uses the Vodafone network, has long had a dubious reputation. The accusation is that the provider at least tolerates the activities of criminals, drug traffickers and the like. This is because prepaid cards do not have proper identity verification.

Lycamobile also has problems with the authorities of other countries. In France there were raids in 2016 in various offices. The allegations here were money laundering and sales tax evasion. There are also sales tax issues in your home country of Great Britain.