Law360, London (October 18, 2022, 6:08 PM BST) -- Dozens of investors urged an appellate court on Tuesday to overturn a finding that any lawsuits against a pension trustee which allegedly recommended "inappropriate investments" had to be filed in Gibraltar, arguing that this would breach their consumer rights.
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16.06.2020
Court of Appeal Crowther vs Crowther/Steven Knight & Ors.
Steven Knight and Castle Trust were drawn into divorce proceedings whereby the wife believed Knight and her husband were conspiring against her to hide the true ownership of vessels. In order to reduce the marital asset pot available for distribution.
Judges’ comments on the merits of Mrs Crowther’s case.
“54. First, there is reason to be sceptical about Mr Knight’s evidence that the Crowthers’ creditors were pressing for repayment and threatening to take over the vessels. In November 2012 Mr Crowther and Mr Knight set up new email accounts for what was described by Mr Crowther as an “offline info flow”. The emails exchanged on these offline accounts appear to show that the demand letters sent by CSM, purportedly acting on behalf of creditors and threatening to take over the vessels, were in fact carefully orchestrated between Mr Knight and Mr Crowther. If that is so, the supposed rationale for the arrangement falls away and the contemporary documents purporting to show pressure from creditors are no more than an artificial paper trail. “
The Court of Appeal was won by Mrs Crowther, and the worldwide freezing order that her husband and Knight sought to have lifted, was kept in place.
Overall, no findings made were made on this case, parties settled out of court.
06.01.2021
Mr Mulvey vs Castle Trust / Gibraltar Court Judgement
“On or about the 31 March 2013, Mr Mulvey, who is a British citizen resident in Malaysia, applied to join the Equus Retirement Annuity Trust Scheme which is administered by Castle Trust here in Gibraltar. This is a Qualified Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (commonly referred to as a “QROPS”) for United Kingdom tax purposes. The application form indicated that a Mr James Ricardo would be performing the role of investment adviser. A Declaration of Trust was executed by Castle Trust on the 10 April 2013 declaring that it would hold the funds in scheme MUL330 upon trust for Mr Mulvey. Shortly thereafter Mr Mulvey transferred funds held by a pension provider in the United Kingdom totalling £543,855.02 into the scheme. According to the particulars of claim, the sum of £527,511.78 was then invested by Castle Trust through an international investment firm, Cornhill Management Limited. Decisions on the investments were at all times made by Mr Ricardo.
By 2015, the portfolio’s value was decreasing and, as a result, Mr Mulvey decided to transfer the scheme from Castle Trust to Sovereign Trust International Limited, the second defendant to the claim. In his particulars of claim, Mr Mulvey asserts that as at the 30 November 2015 the value of the investments in Cornhill had decreased to £437,583.33 and the fund had therefore lost £89,928.45. Further losses of £76,814.00 were incurred by way of surrender and early exit charges on removing the funds from the Cornhill investments. This claim was then issued by Mr Mulvey on the 23 May 2019 alleging that Castle Trust had failed in its fiduciary duties to Mr Mulvey.
13.10.2021
A claim was made against Castle Trust and Management Services Limited for the following:
• Section 27
• Personal
• Tort of common law negligence,
• Breach of fiduciary duty
• Breach of contract.
Skeleton argument claims:
“The [claimants] have gone from having pension assets in regulated UK schemes (in many cases “gold-plated” defined benefit schemes) to the empty shell of a wholly inappropriate pension vehicle for UK-domiciled investors with the defendant firm based in Gibraltar, namely a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (“QROPS”), which is designed for ex-patriates. Each empty shell contains between one and five holdings in unregulated collective investment schemes (“UCIS”), which were entirely inappropriate for pension provision, and which are either entirely worthless or of little, contestable value. In many cases the investors’ accounts are in debit, eroded by the very high charges of [Castle].”
Castle Trust succeeded in this case being thrown out of UK jurisdiction. However, High Street GRP’s solicitors have gained permission to appeal this decision ……
