Motorcycle News reported in their issue of 06/02/13 that the major motorcycle adventure
tour operator Global Enduro has gone into administration. Global Enduro was
behind the flagship Enduro Himalaya tour, as well as the charity-based Enduro
Africa. This came as a big shock, and I suspect the reverberations will go on
for some time.
The Global Enduro web-site reports the fact that the business has gone into administration, but is
also (at 07/02/13) still advertising tours to Bolivia, Cambodia, and Himalaya. The
links seem to be broken, so maybe they haven’t fully updated the site yet. According
to Companies House, Global Enduro Limited (Company No. 04833131) went into administration
on 28/01/13. It looks like this doesn’t just affect the South Africa charity
tours - the CAA claims site refers to Arctic Enduro, Cambo Enduro, Enduro
Africa, Enduro Himalaya, Enduro India and Karma Enduro.
MCN reports
that some nominated charities have not received all the donations they were
expecting. Not all the tours were sold on the basis of inclusive charitable
donations, but looking at the way the charity tours were sold there is an argument
for saying the charitable donation monies in Global Enduro’s hands were subject
to a trust and could not be taken for the company’s day-to-day business
expenses. If that is right then the Administrators could be obliged to account
for that money first before other creditors are paid. And there would be a big question
mark over whether the company might have been trading insolvent but for using those
monies.
I wouldn’t accept
the idea that if Global Enduro agreed something with the recipient charities
then it was ok to delay paying over charitable donations while they used the
money in the business – if that is what they intended then they should have
made that crystal clear to paying customers before taking their money.
Whether
people would have agreed to book their trips on the basis that donations would not
be passed straight to the charities is another question. Some people will have
raised sponsorship to be able to meet the trip costs and will be really unhappy
if that sponsorship money has been lost in the company’s trading failure.
If, as the
MCN report suggests, Global Enduro haven’t been segregating the charitable donations
from their day-to-day trading funds then it raises another issue - whether
pre-paid customer deposits were kept separate.
UK Package Holiday
Regulations contain requirements for security and for holding of pre-paid monies
separately from the tour operator’s trading funds, to facilitate refunds in the
event of a business failure. This is based on European (EU) law. Global Enduro had
ATOL arrangements in place for flight inclusive packages.
In my experience
not all motorcycle tour operators provide information on how they comply with
the Regulations. This high-profile business fail could lead to UK Trading
Standards taking an interest generally in how motorcycle tour operators handle
deposits. Personally I wouldn’t want to book any tours where I wasn’t 100% sure
my deposit was safe and the tour operator could actually deliver on the trip.
However this
stacks up, the directors of Global Enduro Limited owe their customers and the biking
public generally an explanation.
