Property developer Christian Candy today denied claims that he threatened and intimidated business associate Mark Holyoake over a loan.
Holyoake is suing Christian and his brother Mark Candy for more than £100m, claiming they “coerced” him out of millions of pounds after Christian’s company CPC lent him £12m to buy Belgravia mansion Grosvenor Gardens House, SW1, in late 2011.
The Candy brothers strongly refute the allegations and say that Holyoake was an unreliable creditor who lied to them from the start and his allegations of coercion are fabricated.
Christian took the witness stand today, as the case entered its fourth week. Although he only gave about fifteen minutes of testimony before the proceedings closed for the day, his 120-page witness statement was released to reporters.
In it, he thoroughly refutes Holyoake’s suggestion that he intimidated, bullied or made threats.
“A large number of untrue, unpleasant and misleading allegations have been made against me and the defendants which I reject,” he said.
“Mr Holyoake borrowed a significant unsecured loan from CPC, on an extremely urgent basis, and offered and agreed terms which he thought were required in order to secure the funding he needed,” he added.
Even so, Holyoake “failed to keep his side of the bargain” and “repeatedly misled” CPC to avoid repayment. In the end, it took two years for the money to be repaid, he said.
Although lawyers for the Candys have been challenging witnesses brought by Holyoake, this is the first time the brothers themselves have had an opportunity to give their account of the events that led to the lawsuit.
Giving evidence earlier in the case, Holyoake said that he approached Nick Candy, a university friend, for an unsecured loan to help him with a property transaction.
He alleges that soon after the loan was provided by CPC, he was subjected to a campaign of threats and intimidation with the intention of “stealing the asset”.
He also alleges that Christian told him he would deliberately engineer a situation that would put Holyoake’s then pregnant wife Emma, who had previously suffered a miscarriage, under extreme stress.
Christian, in his witness statement, said he never resorted to threats and he remained professional at all times.
“It took a significant amount of hard work by me and my team at CPC to recover that money from Mr Holyoake, but this was done in a professional manner and, at all times, with a focus on commercial reality,” he said.
“I am a businessman, and I am a hard negotiator when I need to be, but I would never (and never did in the context of my dealings with Mr Holyoake) resort to threats or illegal acts in order to complete a transaction.”
Christian Candy will be cros-examined tomorrow (2 March) by Holyoake’s legal team over his recollection of the events that led to the complaint and the details of his witness statement.
