The claim was dismissed by TAP which said they had just served a statutory demand against Ali khan for 60000 of unpaid stock.

Ali Khan served the writ to recover legal fees incurred for using lawyers to serve statutory payment demands against TAP. He says he has been forced to use lawyers to requisition extraordinary general meetings and conduct negotiations with Nasa Khan to sever his business ties with TAP following his resignation as a TAP director last summer.

He claims TAP have breached his shareholder agreement on many counts including a denial of access to the companys books and accounts.

Most recently Ali Khan claimed he would be suing Nasa Khan for having him wrongfully arrest by Police at TAP premises on August 20. Police quizzed Ali Khan for several hours at Kingston Police over alleged threats against Nasa Khan.

Police later released Ali Khan on bail but later dropped the case due to a lack of evidence (Mobile News October 28 2002).

TAPs group managing director Bav Majithia denied any knowledge of Ali Khans latest action saying.

He told Mobile News:

To our knowledge there has been no notice served on us or Nasa Khan. We have served a statutory demand on Ali Khan for 60000 of un paid accessories that Ali Khan purchased at the beginning of last year explained Majithia.

Ali Khan responded by saying TAPs latest claim was ridiculous and denied having purchased any stock from TAP.

Ive not received this notice nor have I purchased any stock from TAP. They are going to have to prove that they delivered the stock.

Taiwanese handset manufacturer DBTEL plans to enter the UK market before Christmas with what it claims is the slimmest and lightest colour screen handset in the market.

DBTEL also claims (Cont P2)to have launched the worlds smallest clamshell WAP handset which has a dual screen display polyphonic ring tones and weighs 70g.

DBTEL head of sales and marketing Canice McKee says the company will focus on supplying handsets to operators to begin with before looking at selling directly to retailers and distributors.

We will be successful in the long term by adopting an operator strategy. It is the best way for us to start. We are close to announcing a deal to launch the DB2039 on one of the UK networks before Christmas. Operators are very interested in our product roadmap for next year. I am not saying we wont look at other routes to market but we will concentrate on operators first.

Our selling point is affordable colour display phones. We dont expect people to pay for technology that they dont want to use right now or the market is not ready for.

These are not low end products. The price has not been determined yet but we expect the DB2039 to be priced lower than Sagems MY X5 colour screen handset McKee told Mobile News.

DBTEL has been producing mobile phones since 1979 and McKee hopes to replicate its success in Asian markets over here.

tus right now.

However Signal Telecom group general manager Julie Brotherton told Mobile News that Hulme will continue to work for Signal on a consultancy basis to continue an ongoing restructure of the company.

Brotherton told Mobile News: David Hulme has left the company. He has been helping us restructure the business and will work with us on a consultancy basis to continue that.

David Hulme wanted to pursue other business opportunities but there was no way he could pursue those opportunities whilst being in the employment of Signal said Brotherton.

Its unfortunate that he has left the company but he will still be working with us over the coming months added Brotherton.

In the early hours of Tuesday August 13 thieves smashed through the distributors glass front doors as well as four subsequent doors to gain access to its secure warehouse.

Once inside the warehouse the thieves grabbed boxes of various Motorola Samsung and Nokia handsets.

Phone Direct managing director Alan Dugard said:

It is the first time we have been burgled and as a result we have spent a further 30000 on (Cont P2) enhancing the security system at the premises.

According to Dugard the thieves were on the premises for 45 minutes and carefully selected what to take. They picked and chose what they took. They knew what they wanted.

CCTV from Phone Direct and buildings around the area has identified the vehicles used in the burglary.

The incident came shortly after Ali Khan resigned as a TAP director (Mobile News August 5).

Police arrested Ali Khan on August 20 at TAPs premises as he arrived to attend an Extraordinary General Meeting. He was taken to Kingston Police station and questioned about alleged threats against Nasa Khan and members of his family.

Ali Khan was later released without charge on police bail pending further investigations.

He denies the allegations saying:

Police told me that they had received a complaint from Nasa Khan that I was making threats against him and his family.

The allegation made is completely unsubstantiated and without foundation. On August 20 I went to the head office of The Accessory People PLC to attend an EGM of the company.

I was first greeted by two security staff and then escorted into a musty and unclean side room. Five high-ranking police officers then bundled me into a police car that raced off at high speed to Kingston Police station.

I was informed much to my disbelief that I was being (Cont P2) arrested on suspicion of threatening the life of Nasa Khan and various members of his family.

After a short interview I was released without charge to the obvious embarrassment of the arresting officers. I intend to reconvene the EGM in the near future hopefully without further incident. My solicitor is handling all further matters.

TAP managing director Bav Majithia issued a statement saying:

We will not tolerate this kind of behaviour towards any TAP board members.

The board are in full support of any criminal action which may be taken against Ali Khan.

At the time of going to press no details of the alleged threats were available. TAP has not commented on the fact that Ali Khan was released on police bail without charge.

Ali Khan claims he has tried to speak to Nasa Khan to resolve the situation but claims that Nasa Khan is unapproachable.

AnP marketing director Bill Mann is in negotiations to appoint a UK distributor.

However he would not say whether any UK operators are likely to take the handsets into their product range.

We will appoint a UK (Cont P2) distributor soon. We only intend to appoint one distributor in the UK.

The first handset will start shipping at the end of August. We intend to attack the market on price Mann told Mobile News.

The first Daewoo handset to be launched will be a dual-screen flip-phone similar in design to Samsungs A300.

The DW 600 is a dual-band GSM 900/1800 handset with built-in organiser full graphical display 300-name/number phonebook WAP and a lithium Ion battery.

A second handset with GPRS will launch before Christmas. Daewoo intends to bring out a colour handset in the first quarter next year.

The winding up order was incorrectly served against Fonekit instead of Sell-line Corporation (trading as Fonekit).

The mistake occurred because Fonekit Ltd and Sell-line (trading as Fonekit) are both based in Eastbourne.

We served a winding up order against Fonekit. We assumed the company was Fonekit Ltd because the name Fonekit appears on all its invoices. We have now discovered the company we have been dealing with is Sell-line (trading as Fonekit) and is not Fonekit Ltd said Mobileshop.com boss Grenville Reeves.

We are in dispute with Sell-line Corporation (trading as Fonekit) over an unpaid invoice. We received a cheque for 7000 which bounced. We will be taking action against the company.

Sell-line financial controller Peter Scheldt agrees that there is a dispute but says it could easily have been avoided.

There is a commercial dispute between Mobileshop.com (Cont P2) and us. Mobileshop.com has owed us 400 to 500 for a year. We have been waiting for them to confirm we can offset this against what we owe them. This has been agreed. But we have not received the confirmation.

Scheldt said the cheque paid to Mobileshop.com bounced because the company changed bankers:

Mobileshop.com insisted we send them a cheque. We explained it would not clear as we were changing banks. We sent the cheque just to confirm the balance owed. We wanted to wait until we had cleared funds.

This has now occurred. The invoice can now be paid.

Mobileshop.com was foolish to insist on us sending a cheque. I am aware a winding up order has been served against a company called Fonekit Ltd which has no direct connection to us. I suspect it will be seeking some redress againstMobileshop.com concluded Scheldt.

The North East dealer and distributor is believed to owe T-Mobile around 6 million.

We have got cashflow problems. But it is not a clawback issue. We are working with T-Mobile to find a solution and we expect to have an answer shortly Cityphone boss Barry Donaghey told Mobile News.

We are undergoing a massive restructuring to cut overheads and streamline the business. There are no disputes with T-Mobile. We became aware of the problems at the beginning of this month. We have time to sort things out.

Donaghey said Cityphones problems were due to a decline in customer demand for mobile phones and reduced network commissions.

He admitted Cityphone over- extended itself by (Cont P2) purchasing too many shops including 30 WAP Store outlets it purchased for 700000 in January.

The shops were the biggest problem. We have now closed 12 stores and franchised over 50 of the remaining stores.

The franchised stores are profitable as is the distribution business he said.

Ironically Donaghey blamed the demise of the WAP Store for the same reasons he told Mobile News in January when he said of Wap Store founder Graham Cornhill that he overstretched himself at the wrong time.

T-Mobile head of sales and distribution Christina Meade was unavailable for comment.

T-Mobile head of external affairs Patrick Barrow said:

It wouldnt be fair for us to comment on another companys financial troubles.

The shutdowns are said to be due to the slowdown in the retail market. Ten staff were affected but five have been found positions elsewhere in the company.

According to Digital Phone managing director Phil Rider the closure of the stores marks a refocusing towards the business community.

Like most dealers we have experienced a 40 per cent decline in new acquisitions over the past year or so. Being the sponsors of Norwich FC we have a high profile in the area and we are trying to get as much benefit as possible out of that.

Businesses know that we are a trustworthy firm and that if they work with us they are keeping money in the region. There are no other major independent business retailers in the area and we want to take full advantage of that. (Cont P2)

As part of Digital Phones links with Norwich FC it has seminar facilities at the football clubs Carrow Road ground and is set to hold the largest-ever business seminar in the area this week.

The future for independent retailers in the area is very difficult says Rider. All the networks have stores in the area as well as Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U. For one of our stores we had a Vodafone network store 100 yards down the road a Phones 4U store 50 yards past that and a Carphone Warehouse just next to that.

Our plan had been to open stores in the areas where these guys werent which are the small market towns. But these wont sustain the stores.

We could have kept the stores open without them losing any money but they wouldnt have been profit-making. So what would be the point?

What we now have to do is concentrate on the SMEs and ensure we provide them with excellent knowledgeable advice.

Of Digital Phones 20 stores 18 were Vodafone-branded and two Orange-branded stores. Digital Phone also offers O2 and T-Mobile direct.

The company acquired three Norwich Phone & Fax stores in November 2000 and six Retail Telecom stores in April 2001. The seven store closures are in Bury St. Edmunds Gorleston Lowestoft St Neots Swaffham Thetford and Great Yarmouth.

The Anglo base was split between small business and corporates and those being managed under a virtual service provider (VSP) arrangement. Generation Telecom has taken the small business and corporate customers.

The acquisition fits into our strategy very well. We heard there was an opportunity and reacted quickly. We thought the corporate and SME base would complement our base said Generation Telecom managing director Keith Westcott.

Kroll Buchler Philips receiver Andrew Pepper told Mobile News it is unlikely that Anglo Communications which went into receivership on August 29 will now be sold as a going concern.

Pepper says it is too early to determine the precise cause of Anglos collapse. He blamed the failure on Anglos slowness in collecting debts from its customers causing cashflow problems.

Anglo recently lost 250000 (Mobile News May 27) when one of its Virtual Service Providers (VSPSs) went into receivership. (Cont P2)

Telecom South MD Clive Thomas agreed to let Anglo take over the Vodafone customer base which was connected through Anglo.

However sources close to Anglo say that the company would only have benefited from the deal some six or seven months down the line.

Anglo parent company Recall group has had its shares on the Ofex market suspended as a result of the problems and is under threat of collapse due to the fact that Anglo was the mainstay of its business.

The collapse of Anglo is a blow to Recall which had only recently acquired a licence to sell Thuraya satellite phones and services.

However it is understood that Recall could take legal action against its finance company Bibby Factors due to the manner in which it called in the receivers. Anglo managing director Jeremy Bartholomew – White could not confirm that legal action had been served against Bibby.

However he did tell Mobile News:

It is true our parent company is unhappy with the treatment by Bibby Factors.

Bibby Factors declined to comment.