Another figure has been brought into the £141m tax tussle between Delancey and HMRC.
Barrie Davison, a banker who spent six years in NatWest Group’s property lending team, received payments from an offshore trust linked to Delancey. He is named among beneficiaries of a British Virgin Islands employee benefit trust – the DV4 Trust – that is at the heart of a High Court dispute between Jamie Ritblat’s Delancey and HMRC.
NatWest Group – which financed Delancey investments under its former name of Royal Bank of Scotland – was not aware that Davison was a beneficiary of the trust until it was notified by The Times. The bank is understood to be looking into whether Davison should have declared the arrangement under its conflict-of-interest policies.
Davison is married to Lesley Chen Davison, a former senior Delancey executive.
The tax office claims that Delancey owes tens of millions of pounds in tax from £141m that the company held in the DV4 Trust. Delancey chair and chief executive Ritblat argues that £400 paid to HMRC as part of a settlement in 2015 prevents the authorities from collecting any more tax. The Revenue disagrees and a legal battle is under way.
