Thoughts on Finance, Current Affairs and General Consumer Ripoffs - Damn Lies and Statistics

The trial of various individuals associated with LCF (London Capital and Finance) started in Feb 2024. There seems little mainstream coverage of the proceedings, probably because they are quite technical and maybe generally of interest to a small group of affected investors. However I've found an excellent resource that is giving daily transcripts of the proceedings and to say they were enlightening would be an understatement. As someone who has been involved in investigating LCF for nearly 8 years it is fascinating to read the behind the scenes details of how the company was setup and how accurate some of my summaries were. Sadly many of the details couldn't be published at the time because without more evidence they would have been considered libellous but the emails from LCF now show how their scheme was planned from the start. You can keep up to date with Mouse in Court here  https://mouseinthecourtroom.wordpress.com/2024/02/25/court-documents-lcf-trial/?s=03 Various advert

 There have been lots of comments on an earlier article about the bonds offered by a company called Marshbell Limited and it appears that many people have lost significant amounts of money as a result. Marshbell repeated threatened legal action and claimed that their investments were low risk and "asset backed", a line used by many failed investments in the past such as London Capital and Finance. Sadly the news relating to Marshbell Ltd isn't positive. Their Companies House records show that their accounts are well overdue despite previously using the accounting trick of adjusting their financial year by 1 day to delay submission. There is also an active proposal to strike the company off so any investors should register their objections to that asap to have any chance of recovering any money. Marshbell Ltd Companies House entry - strike off proposed The second bit of bad news is to look at the accounts for 2021 that they did actually file and these make sober reading. T

 It's been a long time coming but the court case begins in Jan 2024 where various directors and associated parties with London Capital and Finance are being sued by Smith & Williamson (now Evelyn Partners) for a proportion of the £237million that investors lost in the collapse. This isn't the same as a criminal prosecution brought by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) which is still working on whether there is a case to present to court against anyone involved in LCF. A separate case was taken out recently by the SFO against former LCF CEO Michael  (Andy) Thomson where he was convicted of hiding money in breach of an restraint order. More details here:   https://www.sfo.gov.uk/2023/05/17/sfo-secures-10-month-sentence-for-former-london-capital-finance-plc-ceo/ Investors have been compensated by the FSCS for any funds below the £85k limit. Anyone who invested above £85,000 in LCF will still have a significant shortfall in the money they invested. Evelyn Partners are now predictin