Bankrupt Calum Melville was dealt a fresh blow last night as it emerged a global transportation firm was considering legal action against his company.
Lawyers acting on behalf of Ceva Logistics claim that one of the many companies run by Mr Melville has failed to pay their clients for their services.
And after repeated attempts to bill the company, managers at the freight and transportation company said they were now considering moving for Oilfield Integrity Management Ltd to be put into liquidation.
Last night Mr Melville said the company – which he invested £400,000 in – had been “run into the ground” by those in charge of it since 2014.
He insisted he had no part to play in the firm, which is owned by his wife, until December last year when he became a director.
Mr Melville claims those in charge of the business had quit, leaving the company in hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of debt.
He said he now felt obligated to take on that debt and try to ensure as many of the creditors are paid back as possible.
Mr Melville added the company owed around £300,000 to suppliers in the UK and Dubai.
And documents seen by The Press and Journal also detail the failure of the company to pay GammaTec NDT Supplies.
In the correspondence addressed to Mr Melville, he is instructed that if he does not pay what the firm is due, the matter will be reported to Al Barsha Police in Dubai.
Last night Mr Melville said that Oilfield Integrity Management Ltd was in debt to GammaTec after £80,000 worth of equipment went missing on a job.
The 46-year-old – who previously lived in Aberdeen’s Rubislaw Den South before moving to Dubai in 2014 – insisted he had nothing to do with it and said he was not involved with the firm at the time.
He said: “Oilfield Integrity Management Ltd has been run into the ground. I was not even a director of the company when all these debts were run up.
“I have taken on directorship within the last month or so to sort out the mess that has been left by those running the company before me. As the company is owned by my wife I felt I had an obligation to step in to try to sort it out as best I could.
“It would be a shame if the company is put into liquidation as I would like to be able to pay those who are due money back, but what can you do?”
Mr Melville said he had been paying back the money owed by Oilfield Integrity Management Ltd but said he still had around £100,000 to go.
He said he no longer had any use for the company.
In 2013 police launched a criminal investigation into allegations that engineering business Cosalt, which was once run by Mr Melville, was the victim of fraud.
Mr Melville and other directors had been sued by the firm over claims that equipment had not been delivered.
But the case settled out of court after the former Dundee FC director handed over a share of £2million.
Following the civil settlement, Mr Melville said he was not admitting liability for an alleged multimillion-pound fraud and his lawyers said he was not the main subject of the investigation.
The Crown Office ordered the then Grampian Police to conduct a full investigation after the company handed over files prepared for the civil case against the former millionaire.
Last night the Crown confirmed they were still considering the matter.
Mr Melville was recently declared bankrupt in the UK after failure to pay back thousands of pounds he is owed to creditors.
He claimed the move was a deliberate one on his part and said that his business was thriving in Dubai, with him employing up to 1,000 members of staff.
Mr Melville said that he purposely had not paid his debts in order for him to start a new life in the sun with no ties to anyone else’s financial troubles in the UK.
The father-of-three previously told the Press and Journal that his business OIM Energy Group was thriving and had lined up a $2billion (£1.40billion) contract in Iran.
But in October last year it emerged initial steps were being taken to dissolve the company – a process that would have taken about 3 months to complete
Records held in the UK showed that the firm had failed to return its first statutory annual return, setting out basic details of directors and shareholders.
The first set of accounts are also due in March.
If the firm was struck off all property and rights vested in it would have been handed over to the Crown.
However, Companies House confirmed at the weekend that OIM Energy Group was no longer at risk after the necessary documents were submitted last week.