SCOTTISH taxpayers have been “treated like mugs” after a US firm sacked hundreds of workers on Christmas Eve, despite having received public money on the condition that the jobs were retained, Labour MSP Neil Findlay said today.

Kaiam Electronics Limited in Livingston collapsed on December 24, leaving 310 workers jobless.

Its workers, who had expected to be paid on December 21, were told they would be made redundant without pay.

Documents show that the company asked the Scottish government to give it £760,000 just 10 days before it announced its closure, giving the appearance that the business had a future.

Kaiam was given an £850,000 grant by Scottish Enterprise in 2014 to move production facilities from China to Livingston.

It also received £270,000 in central government funding, taking its overall funding from the taxpayer to £1.1 million.

A condition of this investment was that jobs must stay in Livingston until 2021.

However, in an email to Scottish Enterprise on December 14, the company said that “unless we can together come up with $1,000,000 over the next few days,” the decision would be to close the company.

Kaiam’s chief executive Bardia Pezeshki flew back to the US in the week before Christmas.

Mr Findlay said: “Kaiam banked over £1m of taxpayer cash and appeared to float the idea of getting hundreds of thousands of pounds more, before making over 300 workers redundant on Christmas Eve.

“This strengthens the case for a Holyrood inquiry into how government grants are handed to business, as it looks like this business has taken Scottish taxpayers for mugs and treated the workforce appallingly in the process.”