Richard Ellis Financial, Johnson Fry and the partners of Grimley J R Eve are being sued over Don and Roy Richardson’s £30m enterprise zone property trust, the Laser Richmount Telford Trust.
A coalition of investors called the Telford Trust Action Group (TTAG) says two properties in Telford, the Plaza Tower and Plaza Court, were bought within the zone for over £30.24m in March 1992. By September 1997, according to the claimants, the two properties were valued by DTZ Debenham Thorpe at just £9.26m, reflecting a massive loss to investors subscribing in the scheme.
The trust has 924 investors, who put between £5,00 and £500,000 each into the scheme.
The TTAG claims that Richard Ellis Financial and Johnson Fry, as joint sponsors of the scheme, did not take sufficient care to ensure that all facts contained in marketing material were true and accurate. It alleges that both sponsors made misrepresentations and negligent misstatements in an information memorandum to investors and breached their duties as managers of the trust and under the Financial Services Act.
Grimley J R Eve is accused of negligence over a report to Barclays Bank that was shown to the investors between December 1991 and March 1992.
A spokesman for Richard Ellis said it believes there is no case to answer and added: “Any allegations will be vigorously defended.”
EGi News, 5/2/99
