Upper Tribunal (Immigration and asylum chamber), 2020-11-06, JR/05894/2019
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Date | 06 November 2020 |
| Published date | 13 November 2020 |
| Hearing Date | 05 October 2020 |
| Status | Unreported |
| Court | Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) |
| Appeal Number | JR/05894/2019 |
|
R (Iqbal) v SSHD |
|
JR/5894/2020 |
Case No: JR/5894/2019
IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
(IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER)
Field House,
Breams Buildings
London, EC4A 1WR
6 November 2020
Before:
UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BLUNDELL
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Between:
THE QUEEN
on the application of
(1) JAVED IQBAL
(2) SNOBER SADIQUE
(3) MUHAMMAD IBRAHIM
Applicants
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SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent
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Mr Jayed Sarker
(instructed by Adam Bernard Solicitors), for the applicant
Mr Anthony Lenanton
(instructed by the Government Legal Department) for the respondent
Hearing date: 5 October 2020 (via Skype for Business)
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APPROVED JUDGMENT
Covid-19: This judgment was handed down remotely by circulation to the parties' representatives by email, release to BAILII and publication on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website. The date and time for hand-down is deemed to be 4pm on Friday, 6 November 2020
Judge Blundell:
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The first applicant is a Pakistani national who was born on 1 February 1977. The second and third applicants are his wife and child. Their status has at all times been dependent upon his and they raise no separate complaints in this application for judicial review. In the circumstances, I propose to refer to the first applicant as ‘the applicant’.
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The applicant applies for judicial review of decisions which were made by the respondent on 10 July and 27 August 2019. By the first, he was refused leave to remain as a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) Migrant. By the second, the respondent refused his application for Administrative Review. Before I explain the basis of the application or the decisions, it is necessary to set out some of the earlier parts of the chronology.
Background
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The applicant was granted entry clearance as a Tier 4 (General) Student Migrant in 2010. He entered the country in that capacity and studied in London, obtaining a Masters in Business Administration. He was subsequently granted leave to remain as a Tier 1 (Highly Skilled Worker) Migrant and then, in 2014, as a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) Migrant. On 12 March 2014, a company called B J Business Services was incorporated under the Companies Act. The applicant was and is the sole director of the company.
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On 19 May 2017, the applicant applied for further leave as a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) Migrant. Amongst other documents submitted in support of that application there was a letter from a firm of accountants in Tooting, which stated that they acted as accountants for B J Business Services and that the applicant remained the only director of the company. The accountants confirmed that the applicant had invested a little more than £50,000 in the company by way of an unsecured director’s loan. Management accounts dated 8 May 2017 were produced, showing the loan in question. As I have said, a number of other documents were also provided with the application, included but not limited to the unsecured loan agreement and company accounts for the preceding years.
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At all material times, the registered address for B J Business Services was 20-22 Wenlock Road in Hoxton, London N1 and the company’s principal activities were said to be business consultancy and telecommunication services. The company traded from 179 Chatham High Street in Kent, however. As printed on 5 August 2017, the company’s entry on the Gumtree website stated that it offered the following services (reproduced verbatim):
we offer support to individuals, small to medium businesses in the form of strategic marketing and management consultancy.our business consultancy services geared to take your business to the next level, often tackle difficult markets whilst bringing return on investment (ROI) at an early stage.we can hep define and implement your marketing strategy and client relationship management strategies that meet your business aspirations.we work on different key market sectors including retail,publishing , online media, telecoms and many more.our business development firm operates as vertically integrated branding, marketing, sales growth and management consultancy provider.our primary services include channel marketing,media planning,buying,creative services, search marketing and search engine optimization,management consultancy and sale growth strategy planning.
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There then followed a list of sixteen ‘busines gear up services’ which were offered ‘at competitive prices’. The advertisement gave the applicant’s name and the Wenlock Road address. The map on the website, however, suggested that the company was in Yangon, Myanmar.
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The respondent decided that a visit to the applicant’s business premises was appropriate. At 11am on 10 May 2018, officers attended the premises in Chatham, declaring to the applicant that the purpose of the visit was to enable him to provide further information or to clarify information which he had already provided in support of his pending Tier 1 application. The officers remained for two hours, during which they inspected the premises (which the applicant described as a retail shop selling bags, wholesale mobile phones, phone accessories and SIM cards), in addition to interviewing the applicant at some length in a small office at the rear of the shop which had been ‘newly created from plasterboard with a door’. I will return to what was said in that interview in due course. It suffices for present purposes to note that the application was refused on 8 February 2019 because the respondent was not satisfied that the applicant was a genuine entrepreneur. Requests for Administrative Review were refused later that year.
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On 20 May 2019, the applicant made a further application for leave to remain as a Tier 1 Entrepreneur. He relied again on his position as the sole director of B J Business Services. Oddly, no copy of the application is before me but it is clear from the first decision under challenge that the applicant presented evidence in support of this application which he had not presented with the 2017 application. Four items of additional evidence are listed at pp2-3 of the decision: reports, accounts and financial statements for the company; business bank statements; employee documents and ‘other business documents’. There was no further interview before the respondent refused the application.
The Decisions Under Challenge
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In the decision of July 2019, the respondent gave three pages of reasons for refusing the application. I do not propose to set out the reasons in full. They may be summarised as follows:
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The applicant had stated in interview that he spent £50-60 per month on advertising, whereas the accounts for the period ending 8 May 2017 showed total expenditure of £1000 on advertising and PR. The discrepancy led the respondent to question the credibility of the financial accounts of the business.
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The applicant had stated in interview that he had stopped the business development side of his business to focus on mobile phone sales but he had also stated that he intended to turn the premises into a coffee shop or a restaurant. This led the respondent to conclude that the business plans and activities appeared to be ‘unfocussed’.
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The applicant’s website showed that he still offered business development services, whereas he had stated in interview that he no longer did so. The respondent expected a functioning business to have a website showing the services currently offered.
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The website had also shown, for four years, a company location in Myanmar. Whilst that had now been corrected, a genuine business would not have had such misleading information on its website for such a time.
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The applicant stated at interview that he had not carried out any market research and this was of concern, both in relation to the mobile phone business and the potential future franchise of a coffee shop. The respondent noted that the applicant had prior experience in the mobile phone sector but did not accept that he would invest £50,000 without carrying out market research.
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There was no signage at the shop on Chatham High Street, in breach of Companies House rules, and the respondent did not expect a genuine business to operate without a sign.
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The applicant had been unable to provide any evidence of business activity within the 28 days preceding the visit. Whilst further evidence had been submitted with the more recent application, the respondent had concluded on balance that the...
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