A property company set up two years ago by the suspended former boss of Axiom Ince is being shut down, the Gazette can reveal.
Axiom DWFM Properties Limited was incorporated in February 2022 by a sole director, Pragnesh Modhwadia. The 41-year-old was the managing partner of national firm Axiom Ince until he was subject to intervention by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in August last year.
Modhwadia subsequently admitted in court that around £64m from the Axiom Ince client account had been used in part to buy Ince & Co and Plexus Law, as well as to buy six properties and renovate a further seven.
Directors of the firm instructed London practice Devonshires to prepare a preservation and freezing injunction against Modhwadia which was granted in the High Court. The order was extended in September before the SRA intervened to close the whole firm down.
The first notice for compulsory strike-off of Axiom DWFM Properties was issued last May but the action was discontinued.
Documents published in the London Gazette now show that a winding up petition was issued against the company by creditor Philip Learmont. Coincidentally, Learmont was represented in proceedings by London firm Child & Child Law Limited, whose managing partner is Adrian Biles – chief executive of The Ince Group plc until November 2022. Sections of Ince were acquired by Axiom DWFM in April last year.
According to Linkedin, Learmont was the managing director of automation specialist eLegal Technology Solutions Limited until September last year. The company developed and implemented a ‘multi-currency, multi-entry business platform for a global law firm’, according to Learmont’s profile, but does not say which firm.
The petition to wind up Axiom DWFM Properties Limited was heard last month at the Royal Courts of Justice. Companies House records show that the company was then subject to a notice for compulsory strike-off, and last week the court ordered that it be wound up. The petitioner’s costs will be paid out of the assets.
The purpose of incorporating Axiom DWFM Properties has never been made public. Modhwadia was the only director and the company never published any accounts.
