Richard Balfour-Lynn, the founder of Balfour Winery and the former owner of the Liberty department store, has been told to pay millions in compensation after it was revealed he misled investors more than a decade earlier.
After around a twelve-year saga, the Takeover Appeal Board denied Balfour-Lynn’s request to overturn a decision which forced him and two other former colleagues to pay £33 million in compensation.
Balfour-Lynn's “web of sham transactions and false trails” related to the failed MWB Group, the property company which collapsed back in 2013.
Following an investigation into the company, the Takeover Appeal Board found that the wine tycoon had acted in concert with executives Jagtar Singh and Richard Aspland-Robinson.
It was found that the three had hidden the extent of their stake in MWB, as they wanted to gain control of the business without having to lodge a formal takeover offer.
Under acquisition rules, a shareholder, or group of shareholders, must make a mandatory offer once they reach a certain threshold.
Based on these findings, the Takeover Appeal Board ruled that the three “should be required to pay compensation” to MWB shareholders.
Balfour-Lynn said he could only pay £2 million through an individual voluntary agreement.
Omar Faruqui, director general of the panel, said the probe was “the most complex investigation in the panel’s 56-year history”.
In addition to the compensation, the trio were cold-shouldered, which means that no FCA-regulated entity can act for them in any transaction subject to the Code.
The full list of those cold-shouldered was:
- Balfour-Lynn (five years)
- Singh (five years)
- Aspland-Robinson (four years)
- Julian Treger (four years)
- Camille Froidevaux (three years)
- Patrice Huguenin (three years)
- Jean-Daniel Cohen (two years)
- Jeffrey Eker (one year)
- Shaoul Houri (one year)
- Keval Pankhania (one year)