A recruitment company allegedly “created” invoices to which no money was owed, a court was told on Friday.

Southwark Crown Court was told that Quo Vadis Technology Ltd (QVTL) had used the invoices between July and August 2006 to draw down funds from RBS Invoice Finance, with which it had a factoring agreement.

Anthony Spicer, a director of Smith & Williamson, which acted as administrators to QVTL from 15 September 2006, said that QVTL “never” provided any company documents or records to the administrators to shed light on how much the company was worth.

When Spicer looked at bank records provided by RBS for the months of July and August 2006, he claimed: “These were invoices which were not due by customers of QVTL, they were just created. They had no merit.”

Mark Starling and Stephen Lawrence, both from the Chelmsford area, are accused of conspiracy to defraud RBS Invoice Finance by abusing a factoring or invoicing facility agreement by dishonestly entering false invoices onto an online software programme.

Both men deny the charge.

The trial continues.