Property developer Mark Holyoake was subjected to a “malicious campaign of threats, abuse, intimidation and coercion” at the hands of Nick and Christian Candy, lawyers for Holyoake have told the high court.
Holyoake is suing the brothers for more than £100m. At the heart of the case is a loan of £12m that Candy-controlled CPC made to Holyoake in October 2011, which he used to buy a “substantial and valuable property” in Grosvenor Gardens, SW1.
“This is not an entirely usual dispute,” Holyoake’s lawyer Roger Stewart told the court on 8 February. “Each side makes serious and grave allegations against the other.”
The interest rate on the loan was 20% with a term of two years, Stewart said, but by the time Holyoake had settled his debt with CPC in February 2014, he had paid £37m. This was because of a number of “agreements” Holyoake entered into.
Stewart alleges that Holyoake only “entered into these agreements as a result of improper pressure put on him by the defendants”.
“The rates of return that the defendants received were extraordinary,” he said. It was “more than just the rough and tumble of commercial life”.
“Mr Holyoake’s claims are denied in their entirety,” said the Candys. “These matters should, and will be determined on the evidence at trial by the judge.”
The Candys’ legal team will argue that Holyoake’s allegations distort the truth. “The claimants characterise the case as starting from a £12m loan that yielded excessive returns. That is a distortion,” the brothers’ legal team states in their skeleton argument.
“The transaction involved a loan to Mr Holyoake, but was in effect unsecured capital for a project that CPC had already rejected… the returns were commensurate with the associated risks.”
The Candys claim Holyoake’s allegations of coercion are fabricated, and are attempts to pressure them into settling the lawsuit.
Their lawyer, Tim Lord QC, told the court that this is a “conventional claim, a debtor/creditor dispute, the type of which is litigated in the county court every day”. The Candys were simply “nursing their investment”.
“When Grosvenor Gardens House was sold none of the creditors lost any money, and Holyoake himself took around £10m out of the project,” Lord said.
Holyoake “seems to want special treatment”, and when his creditors try to protect their investment “he complains of coercion” he added.
The case so far
Holyoake’s claims
- Holyoake took out a loan for £12m with a term of two years and an interest rate of 20%, calculated quarterly. Under
the terms of the loan, Holyoake was liable to pay the loan and all the interest for the full term of the loan, even if he paid early. He eventually ended
up paying £37m to settle the loan. - Prior to the repayment of the loan in February 2014, Holyoake alleges he was subjected to a campaign of intimidation from the brothers, coercing him into accepting a series of one-sided agreements. They included physical and verbal threats against him, his wife and unborn child. They did this, Holyoake alleges, “to obtain the property [Grosvenor Gardens House] at an undervalue… and to extract as much money as possible” from him.
- In an e-mail to Nick Candy, Christian Candy suggested subjecting Holyoake to “Bad Boy penalties” and suggested that Christian’s company CPC could gain control of the site “if we are clever”.
- Holyoake alleges Christian Candy’s threats and intimidations included calling him a “lying scumbag”, threatening to “destroy [his] world” and use the “nuclear option”.
The Candy brothers’ defence
- The Candy brothers’ skeleton argument says that Holyoake has pleaded “myriad” causes of actions, and that his witness statements make a large number of “(progressively escalating) allegations of the most serious kind, relating to not only wrongful but criminal conduct”.
- The defence says: “The defendants’ case is that this was a project developed by Mr Holyoake on dishonest foundations with other people’s money, and pursued dishonestly, throughout.”
- “The allegations of physical threats are nothing short of disgraceful,” it adds. “The real reason they are made is all too obvious… to pressure the defendants into commercial settlement.” It adds: “He has made fantastic and spiteful allegations in order to vex the Candy brothers in and about their business, professional and personal affairs.”
- It also says that Holyoake was attempting to “use other people’s money” to finance the Belgravia purchase but “keep the equity upside for himself”. This plan was “propped up by a web of untruths” and he has subsequently “concocted far-fetched and dishonest allegations of a most serious nature”.
