The Severe Fraud Workplace has immediately secured the conviction immediately of ex-IFA and funding supervisor David Kennedy for his position in a £100m funding fraud wherein a whole lot misplaced a part of their life financial savings.
The conviction follows a re-trial at Southwark Crown Court docket.
Mr Kennedy, 71, and his enterprise companion, former solicitor Timothy Faculties, 63, managed a Cayman Island registered firm known as Axiom Authorized Finance Fund for over two years.
Mr Kennedy can be sentenced on 8 Could.
The fund promised traders a safe return, providing loans to UK regulation companies that had been pursuing no-win-no-fee instances and the place there was “purportedly a excessive probability of success,” the SFO mentioned.
The Axiom Authorized Financing Fund raised over £100m from about 500 traders – a mean of £200,000 per investor. Victims had been falsely promised a safe return on their cash.
As Monetary Planning Right now reported in 2022, as well as a lot of IFA companies had been hit by the collapse of the enterprise and an insurance coverage dealer enterprise failed.
In his sentencing remarks in 2022, Decide Martin Beddoe described Mr Faculties as “an completely dishonest man.”
Mr Faculties enterprise companion, Mr Kennedy, a former unbiased monetary adviser, was discovered responsible of 1 rely of fraudulent buying and selling. Mr Faculties, a former solicitor, was jailed in August 2022 after being discovered responsible of three counts of fraudulent buying and selling, one rely of fraud, and one rely of transferring felony property. On the trial, the jury acquitted a 3rd defendant, Richard Emmett, on all expenses.
Following the trial in 2022 Mr Faculties was sentenced to 14 years in jail for fraud. In the course of the case it was uncovered that Mr Kennedy used investor cash to fund hundreds of excessive danger instances, that weren’t independently vetted and infrequently failed at courtroom. Few traders ever acquired any return. The variety of purchasers whose instances had been affected by the fraud is within the vary of 35,000, the SFO mentioned.
The SFO additionally discovered that Mr Kennedy diverted over £5.8m from Axiom to pay for objects for his personal profit together with a Swiss ski resort chalet, a Tenerife villa and renovations to his dwelling in Hull. Mr Faculties, from Penrith, Cumbria, used the cash to fund a luxurious way of life, Southwark Crown Court docket heard.
The 61-year-old ex-solicitor, who has since been struck off, was additionally reported to have had a ship, luxurious automobiles and a £5m fishing and capturing property within the Lake District.
Fund to offer the luxurious way of life had been hidden in offshore financial institution accounts and complicated trusts.
Nick Ephgrave, director of the Severe Fraud Workplace, mentioned, referring to Mr Kennedy: “This particular person’s felony actions flooded the authorized system with unwinnable instances affecting a whole lot of people that suffered monetary loss and vital nervousness consequently. This criminality additionally served to undermine belief and confidence within the authorized occupation extra extensively.
“Our specialist staff used their experience to unpick a fancy path of funds, together with into Kennedy’s private accounts, to safe justice for victims immediately.”
