Premier Group Limited, operating out of the Isle of Man, and SL Mortgage Funding Nº1 Limited, originating from Chester, have had legal proceedings against them accepted by Courts in Bilbao.
A group of claimants, represented by lawyers acting for ERVA, filed a civil complaint against the aboved named companies for selling tax defrauding schemes, worth a grand total of €7.5 million, through misrepresentation and deceipt.
The scheme, also known as SITIRS (Spanish Income Transfer and Inheritance Reduction Scheme), was the brainchild of Premier’s Sales Manager for Spain Charles Walton. Unfortunately for his former employers, Walton was busier cheating people than ensuring that his boss complied with the Spanish regulators, a kind of essential job he forgot about completely.
The Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission, via the likes of Bobby Keig, Michael Weldon and Hazel Gawne, by repeatedly ignoring letters and emails from consumers cheated by this company, has given their implicit blessing to the now infamous clandestine activities of Premier Group, in Spain.
As for the appointed lenders, SLM, they were party to the scheme and derived an undisclosed profit for teaming up with Premier; they now face having their mortgages rendered null and void.
SLM (1) (1) (link to Court documents)
Elderly people who the Premier Group previously targeted with their “funds”, may find it hard to believe that this week the Premier Group held a public meeting, complete with guest speakers, to promote another “exciting” new Premier Fund …
The same people will find it unbelievable that the Premier Group have decided to named it :-
“The Socially Responsible Investment Fund” !!!!
Perhaps the directors of the Premier Group may like to explain how “socially responsible” their previous funds were? Including the Premier funds connected to the fraudulent equity release schemes.
And the Premier Group should also make it clear if the words “Socially Responsible” are as accurate as the words “Low Risk” when used to describe the high risk “Premier Low Risk Fund”.
The Premier “The Socially Responsible Investment Fund” (excuse me while I laugh!) was launched in May 2014 and has not shown a positive month’s growth yet. Reminiscent of the Premier Optima 2 and 4 Funds where the equity “released” from “re-mortgaging” pensioners homes was supposed to go to provide “interest” to service the loan and provide an “income”… they never made any profit either!
In fact like every Premier Fund ever “launched” none of them have made any money – except for Premier´s directors and their assorted hangers on.
One “excuse” offered by this worthless bunch is that the pensioners would not have complained if the “funds” had performed as advertised, and that they are only complaining because they lost money!
The truth is that these people are so involved in their own lies and treachery that they fail to appreciate that not everyone is like them and that there are decent, honest people who want nothing to do with any of their fraudulent products whether they are successful or not! But they will come after your money no matter what and persuading pensioners to unlock capital in their previously unencumbered homes to place in one of their scurvy, go nowhere “investment funds” on the untrue pretext that this will give them income and allow them to avoid inheritance tax must rate quite highly in their list of cruel tricks that they will hoist onto old people.
Socially Responsible Not
Before claiming to be “Socially Responsible” perhaps the directors of the Premier Group should consider the matter of their Premier Low Risk Fund and why they …
Named a “high” risk fund “low” risk
Targeted inexperienced, elderly people with an “experienced investor fund”
Imported the fund into Spain without approval or licence
Engaged unqualified and unlicensed “agents” to assist in selling the fund
Claimed the fund offered 100% capital secure
Applied an illegal exit penalty
And then provide answers for questions including …
Why did pensioners lose a substantial amount of their “capital secure” capital?
Would the fund have gone broke without the benefit of the illegal exit penalty”
Was the fund’s valuation price accurate and was it assessed by an impartial party?
Do Premier´s directors know what “social responsibility” actually means?
Perhaps Premier should stop launching new funds until these matters are resolved.
The Premier Low Risk Fund is a plc (public limited company) and as such the Companies Act requires Premier´s directors to disclose to the public certain information about the company – for example the identity of the shareholders, names of directors and company secretary, accounts and directors’ reports, and so on. Perhaps the public should be informed why this Premier Fund has had EIGHT different Company Secretaries in the last EIGHT years? Is this simply a case of career advancement (or other virtuous reason) or could there be some discord relating to the accounting figures… And if there are conflicts regarding the company accounts should these now be disclosed to both the shareholders and the public?
Maybe Premier’s eight former Company Secretaries were displaying “social responsibility” by resigning from a dodgy Fund and hopefully finding improved employment …
Whilst indifference on the part of the Isle of Man regulator (Financial Supervision Commission) gives implicit consent to the activities of Premier Group, surely there are higher authorities inside the island´s government who aware of what is going on? Or is every consumer protection agency on the Isle of Man involved in protecting Premier and by implication the island´s entire financial services industry? Or perhaps the regulation free environment intended to attract honest “funds” to the island has now morphed into an out of control monster?
Maybe the Isle of Man’s worthless financial regulation services will be similarly favoured by Premier’s miracle from God and also undergo a “socially responsible” Damascus road conversion granting them a “socially responsible” means of returning the elderly people’s money.
Sindinero and Bustedflush, both Isle of Man victims, the clue is in the names!
No there is no regulation just a promise to be good and not do dishonest things.
There is no higher authority, the UK govt loves off shore.I think its time all those offshore places are sunk.
Off shore tax havens/financial centres are sewers where giant corporations and wealthy individuals go to defraud their home country tax offices. And where unscrupulous investment fund managers go to hide from the law. Don´t go near them they redefine the word “dirt”.
International finance centres, such as Jersey, Isle of Man, Luxemburg facilitate unsavoury, immoral or illegal economic activity in both developing nations and the developed world.
The offshore tax havens busily polish their picture post card “image” of being delightful places when beneath the glossy veneer they are harbours of crime. For example Gibraltar “trades” on its former glory as a bastion of the British Empire appealing to the jingoistic sentiments of deluded Britons. But in a world of hi-tech drones Gibraltar has about as much military significance as Torquay yet it still trades on its past splendour when in fact it is a squalid centre for tax evasion ,drug dealing, people smuggling and other nefarious activities. But it is unfair to single out Gibraltar as the worst amongst Briton´s assortment of “Crown Protectorates” and “Crown Dependencies” as in recent years ALL of them have developed into highly secretive jurisdictions underwriting tax evasion and providing launch pads for fraudulent financial products. Keep well clear of these places.
What is even worse is that offshore so called tax havens are the jewels in the crown for the immoral and self serving government of the UK. They rant on about corporations dodging tax, pick on the odd so called celeb that stashes their cash offshore but will they close these sinkholes down? Never.
Tax havens should be illegal. Period. And not a little bit illegal; they should be recognized as totally illegal. The idea that we allow wealthy lawyers and financial analysts to sit around dreaming up ways to help the uber wealthy hide their money in ways ruinous to our country and ruinous to the countries they exploit for cheap labour is nauseating. Can anyone explain why the huge international corporations that don’t pay their fair share in taxes are also the wealthiest ones, something even their CEO’s admit?
Tax havens are only legal because we’re so debased and dehumanized that we’ve allowed the elite to buy the law. Ask the a starving family what happens when they steal a loaf of bread… and then ask why we allow billionaires to walk off with their ill-gotten gains curtesy of tax scams, or why they are allowed to game the system in ways that put millions out of work and cost them their homes. The last decade reads like one giant crime scene, resulting in criminal “financiers” being rewarded with their third and fourth homes and an island getaway …
Meanwhile all these unfortunate people did was to use the meagre savings of a lifetime´s work to retire to a modest home in Spain to spend the last few years of their life in peace only for some tax haven based “financial” conmen to steal it from them.
Well said just about sums it up, nice one.
Gibraltar has about as much significance as Torquay, love it!
ga day from australia and justice pensioners emails going the rounds premier group bunch of mongrels mugging oldies! evading tax in woop woop is one thing but robbing oldies while yobbos in governance eggs them is a stinky good onya give those isle man shonky lurks pasty sent to my mates no worries
It would seem that slowlly these banks and institutions are being brought before the courts. Well done Erva and of course their lawyeres at Lawbird Legal Services.
We all want these fraudsters bought before the Courts, but unfortunately they will never appear before the Courts in the tax havens where they are based. Here they are given protection to lie and thieve and rob pensioners in safety. Now thanks to Lawbird these people will be dragged kicking and squirming to have their activities exposed in a democratic Court of Law outside the sanctuary of the jurisdictions where they are allowed to cower!
We would like to thank you all for your contributions to our website. Together with our lawyers and especially Antonio Flores at Lawbird Legal Services Marbella we are constantly working to bring justice for our members and all victims of the now infamous Equity Release Products. We are making great strides in bringing the banks and financial institutions to the courts and will continue to do so no matter how long it takes. We know it is taking too long in some cases, however we must continue to investigate and gather all the evidence required to achieve success in the courts. Our thanks to our lawyers for their tireless efforts and advice given to erva to ensure that what we print is accurate, as we never go to print unless we can back up our claims with hard evidence. Perhaps that is why not one bank has issued proceedings against erva for slander. In fact we wish they would. Thanks again for all our contributors, it really does make a difference.
There are quite a few “comments” appearing on the blog about tax havens such as Guernsey and the Cayman Islands and how they are used by dishonest banks and fund managers to launch their fraudulent financial products, funds and schemes onto the unsuspecting public. Your money is not safe in any of these places and we have now withdrawn ours from what was a calamitous fund based on the Isle of Man. Your money is not safe, but now thanks to the tireless efforts by people like Antonio Flores the swindlers running their frauds from these islands are no longer safe from prosecution either!!! A long overdue clean-up is now underway!!!
One single building in the Caymen Islands, Ugland House, is the “registered address” for almost 19,000 companies … companies used by large businesses to shift profits out of the country where they were earned and into secretive tax havens.
Is it legal? No! Usually multi-nationals simply take advantage of laws that were designed long ago for an economic world of bricks and mortar. In today´s electronic digital world money can be shifted in the blink of an eye to tax havens and charging subsidiary shell companies for the use of “intellectual property”.
In this criminal world white collar thugs rob their own grandmothers, so what does robbing a few thousand pensioners matter?
These islands are toxic. Never invest or bank a penny anywhere near them!
I’ve just seen the headlines recounting the success of the Costa del Sol action Group’s lawyer on their website, and it seems that the end of this nightmare may indeed be in sight for many of the Equity Release victims, – fantastic news, and let’s hope so. (www.costa-action.co.uk)
The Costa del Sol Action Group are pleased to announce that their lawyer Salvador Martínez-Echevarría has won the case of Brinkley vs. S.L.Mortgage Funding No 1. In return for the failed shares issued by the lender, they have had their mortgage cancelled, all their costs paid, and have been awarded compensation.
After eleven years of hard work this signals that we are approaching the end of the scandalous Equity Release Scam. Salvador has stated that he is very pleased with the outcome of this case and that very shortly there may be other good news for members of the CDSAG also currently in litigation.
Well done Salvador Martinez Eschavarria, Surrender Link were part of the whole Equity Release scam and they have been caught and have repaid the money, quite right too. Shame on the illustrious Rothschilds for letting a bunch of old folk fight for years to get back what is theirs. Still perhaps they are saving up to pay us back.
Glad I am not illustrious like them, must be awful to be so immoral and so lacking in integrity. Go Salvador!!!!!
Well done David … after all your years of determined campaigning (via the CDSAG) you have scored another great success and there are many people who owe you a huge debt of gratitude.
The Surrender Link Limited, based in Chester, has had a long and close connection to the Isle of Man based Premier Group Ltd as a provider of endowment policies to its disastrous Premier Low Risk Fund plc – another fund you have fought tirelessly on behalf of their “victims”.
Eleven years of determined and patient work has eventually paid off. Now let us hope that EVERYONE who has been injured by the activities of these various companies will now be fully compensated for their losses.
Keep smiling!
A researcher from an influential Spanish university visited this website (erva) yesterday and was appalled to learn that foreign companies had entered Spain without licence or permit to sell to old people fraudulent investments through equally illegal proxies.
He made the point that the elderly people were living in Spain legitimately, were conducting themselves totally legally and we lawfully and positively contributing, via various direct and indirect taxes, to the Spanish exchequer. And that they were a respectful and reputable asset to the Spanish nation.
That foreign intruders from duplicitous offshore tax havens should assault elderly Spanish residents was an invasion of Spanish sovereignty, an affront to the Spanish people and an attack on the homeland.
Yet more support for erva from another very prominent quarter …
After today´s good news it is worth remembering how S.L.Mortgage Funding No 1 (aka Surrenda-link Mortgage Limited) and the Premier Group (Isle of Man ) Ltd worked together.
Premier needed a lender who could come up with 40 million Euros to invest in their funds which included the “Premier Optima 2 and 4 Funds” and the “Premier Balanced Fund” (all restricted to “experienced investors”) a devious scheme which became known as the “equity release scam.”
SLM Funding Nº1 (a company already supplying Premier with traded endowment policies) won the tender process and was selected by Premier to find the money, an imperative they carried out efficiently with the assistance of two other “banks” .
However these “loans”, which were intended to be “invested” in Premier´s funds, needed to be underwritten and it was decided that mortgaging the bricks and mortar of around 100 Spanish properties belonging to elderly people would provide useful collateral to ensure that, if the loans weren’t paid some 200 British pensioners would be made responsible for footing the bill.
The Premier Balanced Fund is now probably worth less than half its value and the ex-sailors, ex-policemen, house wives and other elderly resident retirees in Spain, who had been instilled with the fear of God by false claims published by the Premier about Spanish Inheritance Tax had their properties (and very lives) under threat as SLM Funding Nº1 threatened to foreclose on their previously unencumbered properties.
Nice way to treat old people?
Now let’s get this straight. The Premier Group (Isle of Man) Ltd launched funds financed by bank loans (for example the Premier Low Risk Fund was financed by borrowing up to half of its value from the RBS) and then Premier “borrowed” money from investors (for example the Premier SITIRS Equity Release Scheme was financed by motivating people to mortgage their homes). And then this borrowed money was invested into half-baked Premier funds which at best never made a profit or are now defunct.
And Premier´s directors and their pusillanimous associates pocket a nice profit whilst the “investors” lose their life savings or maybe even their homes.
Meanwhile the Isle of Man government and the financial services regulator (Financial Supervision Commission) just sit back doing nothing except to introduce a new Statute of Limitations to reduce the amount of time victims have to complain – in which event they had already resolved to do nothing. Not forgetting that the victims were mostly elderly people who would probably be dead before they could bring legal action – even if they had any money left to finance such action.
The anxiety and fear caused to vulnerable, elderly people, in some cases living on their own, is incalculable. And all of this emphasises the need for brave people like Antonio Flores to drag these schemers out of their offshore, tax haven hidey-holes and into Spanish jurisdiction to face legal remedy.
The big banks are in the news again today with more penalties being imposed for foreign exchange manipulation, Libor-rigging and mis-selling, all of which could take the total fines levied on the banking industry particularly the three British banks – the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Barclays and HSBC to over $300 billion!
Over the next two years, Morgan Stanley predicted that banks would have to earmark another $69.9bn for misconduct fines, including those related to mis-selling mortgage-backed securities and payment protection insurance, added to the $232bn put aside our paid out for misconduct and other regulatory fines since 2009.
But we don’t want to see fines which are invariably paid by the shareholders.
What we want to see long are long jail sentences for those who committed these crimes AND those in charge who allowed this criminal culture to develop. And we also want to see the grubby tax havens like Luxemburg, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, where these banks devise their sleazy schemes, closed down, cleaned out and returned to law and order.
Banks have no money only people do. The ‘fines’ will therefore be paid by shareholders in lost profits, customers in higher charges/fewer services and bank workers in lower pay awards, redundancies and fewer jobs.
The only winners will be those who collect the fines and that would be Governments who regularly manipulate interest and exchange rates, squander huge amounts of taxpayers’ money but nobody running them every gets fined or goes to gaol.
Why has this success taken so long? Does anybody remember a Carolyn & Henry Bowen claiming success against Landsbanki back in March 2011 allegedly achieved by Salvador Martinez-Echevarria. The same lawyer that does not answer emails or keep you up to speed as to what progress is being achieved.
I certainly do. He acted on my behalf & after 3 years of being left in the dark etc. etc., I dispensed with his services & went with another well-known solicitor. Another 3 years have passed & I am getting the same treatment. After 6 years, I still haven’t a clue as to what is happening with my claim.
I have just come across this website from a thread linked to Lawbird.
I was totally oblivious to this disgraceful ripping off of people’s hard earned.
One point I would make is that surely it is illegal in Spain to entice people in to unknowingly breaking the law with regard to tax.
Maybe after this scum has started to pay back some of the money it has scammed, we will see some of the instigators being imprisoned.
Prison sounds a good idea … But catching them is the biggest problem as these scoundrels base themselves “offshore” where it is often impossible to discover who owns the companies involved in financial scams. The UK’s tax havens ( the Crown Dependencies, Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey and seven Overseas Territories) promised to do something, then (maybe) did it but kept so quiet about the results so that nothing on the ground actually changed at all.
It is still as easy as ever to run a Ponzi Scheme, become a tax evader and set up a secretive offshore company to disguise the “ownership” of the dirty deeds.
The British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Jersey and the Isle of Man all feature in the top 20 list of places most favoured by the world’s corrupt.
What is illegal in Spain (and any other civilised country) is often tolerated “offshore”.