Failed P2P platform FundingSecure faces a new threat of litigation over an allegation of a ‘secret commission’ payment.
The ‘secret commission’ allegation is expected to be added as a counterclaim in on-going legal action listed for trial this Autumn.
Partial funding for this reporting was generously provided by members of the ‘FundingSecure Action Group’. If you would like to support crowd-funded journalism of the P2P Sector please consider donating to the Cheese Fund
At a preliminary hearing earlier this year His Honour Judge Johns QC, sitting at the Central London County Court, explained that as FundingSecure was in Administration permission had to be sought from the High Court to add the claim to the case.
It is understood the borrowers, Fahmida Anwar and Ruxana Begum, both of Knox Road E7, made such an application to the High Court in Manchester on Monday. The status of their application is not immediately known.
The total amount lent, some £78k, is understood to be a second charge loan secured against a ‘two bedroom flat located on the fourth floor of a five storey block of flats in London’.
The loan was expected to have ended on 31st Aug 2018 and was financed by members of the public who crowd-funded the total amount.
A similar claim of ‘secret commission’ was made by a different borrower on the FundingSecure platform in legal proceedings in Coventry.
Court documents, exclusively seen by the mouseinthecourt, say that a commission of £11,300 “was not disclosed to the Defendants and had been paid to [their broker] without the Defendants knowledge or consent”.
As a result it was expected to be argued that “the defendants are thereby entitled to an order for rescission of the Mortgage”. FundingSecure denied any wrongdoing.
The mouseinthecourt understands the case settled immediately prior to trial.
Fahmida Anwar and Ruxana Begum are understood to have instructed Dumonts Solicitors
FundingSecure is expected to be represented by barrister Lloyd Maynard
It is understood that the matter has been listed in a 3-day-trial window starting on 5th September 2022. A pre-trial-review is expected to be held in August.
FundingSecure was fully authorised by the FCA and were placed into in administration in October 2019 “partly because the company could not support the costs of ongoing litigation”. Jonathan Avery-Gee, Edward Avery-Gee and Daniel Richardson of CG & Co were appointed as Joint Administrators of the Company.
Former director Richard Luxmore left the company after becoming caught up in allegations that he created “false and fraudulent documentation so as to conceal” payments of £8.15m whilst at the company. He denies these allegations.
Mouse in the Court 
I have several hundred thousand ££ stuck in Funding Secure simply because the administrators chose to part with the money on spurious grounds. Across all investors, this amounts to several million ££. Will I/we ever see this being paid to us? It is factually and correctly our money. But, by the administrators’ own admission, they “don’t care about the investors”. So, who do they care about? I, for one, don’t have to think too hard to find the answer.
LikeLike