{"id":9305,"date":"2025-02-01T03:14:01","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T03:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=9305"},"modified":"2025-02-01T03:14:01","modified_gmt":"2025-02-01T03:14:01","slug":"operators-of-london-capital-finances-ponzi-scheme-liable-for-180mn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=9305","title":{"rendered":"Operators of London Capital & Finance\u2019s Ponzi scheme liable for \u00a3180mn"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Operators of London Capital & Finance\u2019s \u201cPonzi scheme\u201d have been told they are liable to pay \u00a3180mn to cover losses sustained by investors in one of the UK\u2019s biggest financial scandals.<\/p>\n

Spencer Golding, a businessman found to have had \u201cultimate control\u201d of the now-defunct investment company, alongside other defendants including former LCF chief executive Michael \u201cAndy\u201d Thomson, were told on Friday they were liable for a total of \u00a3180mn.<\/p>\n

Another group of defendants, including former police officer Paul Careless, whose marketing efforts had attracted individual savers to LCF, were found to be liable for a total of \u00a3211mn for \u201cdishonest assistance\u201d. <\/p>\n

At a High Court hearing in London on Friday, the judge in the case said he recognised it was \u201chighly unlikely\u201d that the defendants would in practice be \u201cable to pay anything like the amounts\u201d he ordered, given the \u201ceconomic circumstances of the parties\u201d.<\/p>\n

But administrators to LCF, which raised about \u00a3237mn from almost 12,000 investors before its collapse in 2019, said they would push to recover as much as they could.<\/p>\n

The hearing came after Mr Justice Miles ruled last month that the failed provider of so-called mini bonds was a Ponzi scheme that misrepresented itself in a \u201cwidespread, fundamental and systematic\u201d way.<\/p>\n

LCF had promised high returns to investors, many of them elderly, by providing financing for small and medium-sized UK companies.<\/p>\n

In fact, said Mr Justice Miles, a \u201csubstantial part\u201d of the money raised was misappropriated and used to make payments to people connected with the company.<\/p>\n

Some of the proceeds were spent on items including diamond earrings, horses and shotguns, the court previously heard.<\/p>\n

Administrators had brought the civil case in an attempt to recover money on behalf of creditors, which include the Financial Services Compensation Scheme as well as individuals who invested particularly large sums and were not covered in full by the scheme.<\/p>\n

Barry Coffey, partner at Mishcon de Reya, representing the administrators, said on Friday: \u201cWe will now be taking steps to enforce the terms of the order and collect assets to realise in satisfaction of the judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said administrators were \u201cpleased to have now obtained this order, after four and a half years of litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawyers acting for Thomson told the court on Friday that he was \u201cclearly not the mastermind\u201d of LCF, and that he had did not derive nearly as much financial benefit as some of the other defendants.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Careless said he \u201cdid not know the full details of the misappropriation of assets\u201d and \u201cwas not himself involved in or fully aware of the dealings with the monies raised by LCF once the money had been raised\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lawyers acting for Golding told the court it was \u201cvital that sufficient time is given\u201d to him \u201cto enable him to comply with [his] obligations\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Operators of London Capital & Finance\u2019s \u201cPonzi scheme\u201d have been told they are liable to pay \u00a3180mn to cover losses sustained by investors in one of the UK\u2019s biggest financial scandals. Spencer Golding, a businessman found to have had \u201cultimate control\u201d of the now-defunct investment company, alongside other defendants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[206],"tags":[3531,1118,1391,587,2561,3530,1316,535],"class_list":{"0":"post-9305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-financial-crime","8":"tag-180mn","9":"tag-capital","10":"tag-finances","11":"tag-liable","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-operators","14":"tag-ponzi","15":"tag-scheme"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}