The statement below was made by a RV (Rothschild Victim). Names have been ommited to preserve confidentiality.
This statement fully validates Mr. Nott’s honest and truthful affidavit, and exposes the lies of the “Rothschild” brand.
Mr. Dewsnip, let your conscience be your guide and sever ties with your former utterly dishonest employers. You were economical with the truth on stand once, don’t dig a deeper hole for yourself.
Mr. Donald Nott of Henry Woods, a company trading as financial advisors previously known to us, telephoned to say that he was arranging a seminar in the Javea, Parador hotel and that a Mr. Stephen Dewsnip, a senior director of Rothschild Bank, would be giving a talk on a Rothschild financial product known as the “Rothschild Credit Select Series 4 Equity Release Plan”.
Due to a previous commitment we were unable to attend the seminar and instead asked Mr. Nott to come to lunch at our house, an occasion which would provide him with an opportunity to explain the “Rothschild Credit Select Series 4 Equity Release Plan” in greater detail.
Mr. Nott agreed to this arrangement and then asked if he could bring Mr. Dewsnip, the Rothschild Bank director, with him. We agreed to this and felt quite honoured to have a director from a prestigious bank in our home. Both men arrived at 12.30pm and we enjoyed some convivial, pre-lunch drinks together.
The smartly dressed Mr. Dewsnip appeared to be on extremely good terms with Mr. Nott.
Both were very courteous and once lunch started Mr. Dewsnip began to explain the Rothschild Credit Select Series 4 Equity Release Plan. Mr. Dewsnip advised us that, in view of our well-defined financial circumstances, the Rothschild scheme would be an ideal “investment” as it would release equity locked-up in our home, provide another source of income and reduce inheritance tax. The entire scheme, he assured us, was underwritten by a Rothschild Bank loan that would be guaranteed for 10 years.
Mr. Dewsnip was aware that my husband John John, a retired Army officer, had a small pension and Mr. Dewsnip also fully understood that the only accessible capital we had was tied up in our home. He advised both my husband and I that Rothschild Credit Select Series 4 Plan would be financially beneficial to us as the equity released in our home would provide us with an initial lump sum of up to 5% of the value of the house, and the “income” following on from investing the remaining money in a “financial product” would provide an annual net income of up to 3%.
Mr. Dewsnip wholeheartedly assured us that the Rothschild Credit Select Series 4 Equity Release Plan was guaranteed by Rothschild Bank and was particularly appropriate for elderly people not wishing to move house again. And that Rothschild Bank would not involve anyone, particularly pensioners, in a hazardous financial product that would expose them to unexpected risks.
We are inherently adverse to taking financial risks of any kind but the assurances we received from Mr. Dewsnip, director of Rothschild Bank who was actually sitting in our house and eating our food, was sufficient to convince us that the Rothschild Credit Select Series 4 plan was a safe and appropriate plan consistent to our financial circumstances. And it was the advice received from Mr. Dewsnip, a director of Rothschild Bank, that finally persuaded us to enrol in the Rothschild Credit Select Series 4 Equity Release Plan.
At no time during our lengthy conversation with Mr. Dewsnip did he draw any distinction between the names “NM Rothschild & Sons” and “Rothschild Bank International”.
At all times Mr. Dewsnip referred to his employees as “Rothschild Bank” and if there is a legal distinction between the two entities then Mr. Dewsnip failed in his fiduciary duty to disclose this information and in doing so misled us into entering into a contract.
Should “NM Rothschild & Sons” avoid legal liability for alleged damages caused by the alleged unauthorised sale of the Credit Select Series 4 Equity Release Plan in Spain by exploiting the rules of corporate structure to hide behind a subsidiary company known as “Rothschild Bank International” (or any other Rothschild subsidiary) this can be legally remedied by what is known as ‘piercing the corporate veil’ where courts are enabled to look behind the veil of incorporation of the subsidiary and hold the parent company liable for the conduct of the subsidiary.
In other words the separate legal personality of the subsidiary is ignored and the parent company is held liable. However it is highly improbable that a bank of the stature and reputation of NM Rothschild & Sons would resort to these devices, particularly as these allegations involve almost exclusively elderly people.
The use of subsidiary companies by financial product providers to “promote” their products is not new. The Premier Group (Isle of Man) Ltd (involved in the Spanish Equity Release “problem”) uses a subsidiary company named Premier Distribution Inc to “promote” their funds and pay commissions to the unlicenced and often unqualified intermediaries employed to assist in misrepresenting Premier investment funds.
Premier Distribution Inc is registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and never publishes company accounts although the parent company has transferred £millions to it. Secrecy is the BVI’s stock-in-trade and the BVI government normally has no idea who actually owns the tax-free companies or what they do… so whether Premier’s intermediaries pay income tax (and in which jurisdiction) remains unknown. The only significant information supplied to the official registry is the name of the company’s agent – one of the local firms who arrange incorporations and they refuse to release further facts to anyone.
It is estimated that more than $20trillion could lie in offshore accounts and the (UK-controlled) BVI, where over a million offshore entities are incorporated, is the most successful among the mushrooming secrecy havens that cater for them. However there are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts so do not suggest or imply that all persons, companies or other entities have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly by registering a company in the BVI or any other offshore financial centre.
Read “Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World”
Excellent and informative book by Nicholas Shaxson
Available from Amazon Paperback £8.00 Kindle £5.00
Also visit : http://treasureislands.org/ for a fascinating insight into this subject.
So can I “pass off” responsibility for my activities by simply registeringa “business” entity in an offshore centre so that when Mr Plod arrives to question me I can simply say “Wasn’t me – it was my subsidiary company in an offshore centre what did it”,
And to further his investigations Mr Plod will have to travel to an offshore island and talk a brass plate nailed to a tree along with thousands of other brass plates? Sounds like a good way of avoiding Mr Plod!
Hiding behind brass name plates to avoid detection …
What kind of people do this to elderly people?
We are definitely in cowboy country here.
Round them up Mr Flores, round them up and give them their just deserts!
All of which begs the question;:- How do the “governments of the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Luxemburg justify allowing shady companies to use their secretive jurisdictions to launch illegal products in other countries, and in so doing profit from the proceeds of crime.
The Isle of Man authorities in particular are very skilful at concealing financial criminalities and feign outrage at any suggestion that their corrupt little island is not anything other than a ‘well, regulated, open and transparent, low tax jurisdiction’. The government repeat this chant so often that naïve and deluded people are indoctrinated by it.
This indoctrination extends to the island´s “regulator”, the “Financial Supervision Commission” which by design is operated to protect not the consumer but the island´s foremost business, the financial services industry. To date this organisation has blatantly ignored the illegal activities of the Premier Group (Isle of Man) Ltd allowing its directors to defraud elderly people in Spain by illegally importing financial products, marketing illegal financial products and employing persons acting illegally to assist in these frauds before taking the proceeds back to the Isle of Man.
The Isle of Man “Financial Supervision Commission” is now so perverted that it steadfastly fails in its fiduciary duty as a civic body to protect the public by enforcing the law. Evidence of this duplicity is in the public domain in sufficient extent to convince every honourable person to reject this corrupt little island until its government elects to conduct its affairs openly and honestly.
Until then those entrusted to govern this squalid tax haven will remain as contemptible and conniving as the companies they protect from prosecution.
We too have had the unpleasant experience of “dealing” with the comedians employed inside the Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission.
Recently, in fact very recently, the Head of the FSC, John Aspden, said that it was entirely the fault of the old people; they should not have been so irresponsible as to believe anything the directors of Premier (Isle of Man) Ltd published or said.
Over forty” managers” are listed in FSC “Organisation Chart”: all apparently on huge salaries paid to nurture the fraudulent mantra that the Isle of Man is… ‘A well, regulated, open and transparent, low tax jurisdiction’. which as the world increasing realizes is just a load of twaddle and that the FSC is deliberately loath to detect financial crime, deal properly with the victims of financial crime and then solve financial crime including if necessary putting the offenders in prison.
Instead the FSC continues with its arrogant excuses that elderly people who chose to ‘invest’ in financial products run by Isle of Man based companies should know better and it is their own fault if things go wrong. In other words the FSC could not care less that Isle of Man based companies sell fraudulent financial products!
The Isle of Man authorities (and those in Guernsey and Luxemburg) live in a parallel universe where financial crime is the norm and the perpetrators merit protection. And that is why these people must be dragged into Spain (or anywhere else in the world where they commit crime) to face appropriate justice.
The following advertisement was distributed widely in Spain under the logo “ROTHSCHILD”
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WHY NOT USE YOUR PROPERTY TO ENJOY AN EVEN BRIGHTER OUTLOOK?
With a Rothschild mortgage you can diversify the equity in your Spanish property into an investment portfolio of equities and bonds. Depending on your personal circumstances, this may provide tax planning opportunities for you and your beneficiaries as well as initial capital release and the potential for annual income.
To find out more, call either your financial advisor or Stephen Dewsnip – +44(0) 1481 705130 or email stephen.dewsnip@rothschild.com Mortgages are supplied to Spanish residents by NM Rothschild & Sons
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* The telephone is in Guernsey and there is no mention of “Rothschild Bank International”
* The advert states “beneficiaries” a clear reference to Spanish Inheritance Tax
* The words “your financial advisor” and “Stephen Dewsnip” are directly associated.
* Was Rothschild (in whatever guise) dispensing financial advice in Spain?
Before any company can market financial products in Spain – including mortgages, investment funds and collective investment schemes, or give advice regarding any of these products – they must first register with The Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) the regulatory body of the Spanish Stock Market.
Visit the CNMV at:- https://www.cnmv.es/portal/home.aspx?lang=en (an excellent website in English) and search for “Rothschild Bank International” as a registered entity to provide investment products or advice in Spain and the CNMV delivers the reply “No Results Found”.
Was Rothschild, in any guise, marketing financial products and dispensing investment advice without first registering with the Spanish regulator?
And if so are all the contracts formed between Rothschild, their various intermediaries and Spanish residents now null and void?
USE YOUR PROPERTY TO ENJOY A BRIGHTER OUTLOOK !!!
When translated out of Rothschild and Premier jargon means the following …
Dear Elderly Person.
Sell your house to us and we will put the money into one of our totally worthless investment funds which are in danger of collapsing through incompetent management and lack of capital. And because these useless investment funds will not support any of the claims that our SITIRS scheme advertises, that is ….
* Service your new mortgage
* Provide you with income
* Allow you to evade Spanish tax
you will be in grave danger of losing your home.
The good news for us is that we hold the deeds to your house and all the heavy costs, charges, expenses and commission fees we are loading against your money will allow us (and the scoundrels helping us to sell this scheme) to make a very fat profit. All at your expense, thank you very much.
But we will leave you to discover this yourself. You silly old fool.
COFFEE WITH STEPHEN DEWSNIP
We are also RV’s, and when we spoke with Stephen Dewsnip at a seminar with Henry Woods, he personally explained to us over a coffee exactly as has been recounted here. There was never any mention of any trading name except Rothschild Bank.
When advice is not financial advice. Financial Adviser or Intermediary?
I recently sat in on a “consultation” between my daughter and a mortgage intermediary.
The intermediary claimed that he was not offering advice but merely “information” about mortgages. However, as the conversation ranged over my daughter’s different options, I could not help feeling that he sounded more like a financial adviser than an intermediary…
This blurring of the distinction between information and advice effects the entire financial services industry where consumers may think they are receiving information, when in fact what they are being given advice.
When you have advisers on the one hand and intermediaries on the other investors could be forgiven for failing to spot the difference. But the distinction is important because investors should be crystal clear about whether they are receiving financial advice or not. If they mistakenly think they are, they could be lulled into a false sense of security about the appropriateness of the product they are buying.
Some financial advisers suspect that intermediaries deliberately blur the distinctions as the intermediaries draw up lists of their preferred funds and produce glossy booklets highlighting a small number of carefully selected funds, while making no mention of the rest.
The public should ask, doesn´t this represent, advice to buy certain funds and ignore others?
The intermediaries respond that the information they provide should not be construed as amounting to recommendation or advice. But the public should understand that if it looks like financial advice, sounds like financial advice and feels like financial advice, the public must consider it to be financial advice.
1. Rothschild Bank produced a brochure praising the advantages of their SITARS scheme completely independently, without any intermediaries, and giving their own telephone numbers to call.
2. There is no doubt whatsoever that Stephen Dewsnip gave financial advice on behalf of Rothschild bank when he toured Spain participating in promotional seminars. He enthused over, and personally recommended the scheme to us.
3. Any and all of the information he gave to us turned out to be lies.
The Isle of Man-based “The Premier Group” also launched a SITIRS inheritance tax mitigation scheme aimed at Britons with Spanish properties.
Premier, helped by their mostly unlicenced and unqualified intermediaries put the fear of God into elderly people over the issue of Spanish inheritance tax and claimed that if their homes had a loan registered against them the amount eligible for IHT in Spain would be the value of the property minus the loan.
The Premier Spanish Investment Transfer and Income Release Scheme (SITIRS) was financed by Rothschilds Bank in Guernsey and UK-based Surrenda Link Mortgage Holding and investors were to place the money raised by the mortgage into a guaranteed product or an actively managed fund – but only a Premier fund!!
Costs and charges attaching to the Premier SITIRS product were high with Premier paying their “intermediaries” an initial commission of 4% and an annual “trail” commission” of 0.5%.
Visit:- http://www.professionaladviser.com/international investment/news/1329056/premier-offers-spanish-iht-mitigation
Of all the various companies and banks involved in this “scheme” only Surrenda Link Mortgage Holding (and its various subsidiaries) were based in the UK – the remainder were based in offshore centres. And all the companies appear to have been operating in Spain (in some capacity or other) without authorization, licence or permit from the Spanish regulators.
Also worth noting is that Premier’s employees also dispensed financial advice in Spain and Premier’s funds rarely if ever make any sort of profit for investors.
The article states
The statement below was made by a RV (Rothschild Victim). Names have been ommited to preserve confidentiality.
This statement fully validates Mr. Nott’s honest and truthful affidavit, and exposes the lies of the “Rothschild” brand.
Mr. Dewsnip, let your conscience be your guide and sever ties with your former utterly dishonest employers. You were economical with the truth on stand once, don’t dig a deeper hole for yourself. end of comment.
The comments stated about Donald Nott are hearsay and not acceptable in a court of law. To make it acceptable get Donald Nott to get his statement notarized. Nott is a liar and has ruined hundreds of peoples lives. Henry Woods placed the public advertisements in Spanish/English newspapers ad on English speaking radio Onda Cero and Spectrum therefore this is the first part of the scam. Henry Woods were not registered with the CNMV only with the Mercado de Valores and this is a license to sell only insurance products.
The actual product was not registered with the Mercado de Valores as required by Spanish law. Any investment money paid out or into Spain must be registered with The Bank of Spain. Henry Woods and Rothschilds ripped you off.
See our website http://www.costa-action.co.uk
David. Your comments are valid but … many of the intermediaries “used” (in both the literal and figurative sense) could have been a bit “thick”. Few of them had any qualifications to understand financial products and it is possible that they were misled along with those members of the public who fell for the claims appearing in both Rothschild’s and Premier’s glossy SITIRS advertisements.
Employing unqualified intermediaries to assist in marketing a financial product can be beneficial to the product provider as an intermediary who doesn’t understand the product will not understand its legality or technical problems and could be innocently repeating information appearing in glossy sales brochures which were not produced by the product provider and not them.
Blame should be proportioned fairly… and in this case the intermediaries involved in assisting in the sale of the SITIRS products were inexperienced, naïve and easily led for money in the form of generous commissions!
Although your comments about the intermediaries failure to register with the CMNV are damning, perhaps you should reconsider your views about the intermediaries as they may be less guilty then you suggest?
I have been running the Costa Del Sol Action group for 11 years with John Parsons we do this free of charge and pay our own expenses. We are also victims of Donald Nott of Henry Woods we were not involved with Rothschild’s and Premier. Let me assure you Nott he is a highly intelligent man who has ruined hundreds of peoples lives with is agents. Not one of them were legal.
You obviously are not aware of how many thousands of people have lost their homes and in some cases apart from being elderly, with a comfortable pension lost all to be repatriated back to the UK.
I am not directing my comments about those people who had no qualifications to sell financial products of solely Rothschild’s and Premier’s glossy SITIRS advertisements there were so many other products!
No person can give financial advice in Spain unless they have qualifications and are registered.
All those involved were selling financial products and certainly not just ‘Assisting’ they took their clients by the hand to the Notary etc and handled the sale.
Maybe many of the intermediaries “used” (in both the literal and figurative sense) could have been a bit “thick” but they all took their commission and ruined peoples lives.
Rothschild and Premier (in various subsidiary incarnations) contracted with elderly people to join the SITIRS scheme. Along with this contract came a fiduciary duty to deliver due diligence, good faith and accountability – starting with a disclosure of the correct trading name of the bank the people were to entrust their faith in!
The commission driven, unlicensed and unqualified “agents” hired to help hawk the SITIRS product lacked the ability to understand the complexity of the scheme – particularly when in reality they were primarily designed to obtain money for useless investment funds that were totally incapable of underpinning the SITIRS.
The “agents” were like unskilled workers in a confectionary shop selling sweeties which they had not made and which they knew little about except the large commissions. The SITIRS was never intended to particularly benefit the “agents” or the elderly people who mortgaged their unencumbered homes – they were primarily for the benefit of those who devised the scheme in the first place and without them this disaster would not have happened!
The “Hacienda” (Spanish Tax Office) has declared the scheme to be illegal and a criminal offence to sell for inheritance tax avoidance in Spain… In this format similar schemes were made illegal by the UK regulators nearly 25 years ago.
But Rothschild felt safe in selling the product in Spain, and were lavish with their praise of the product, how it was especially designed for elderly expats, was very secure, had a 100% guarantee and was very low risk. Rothschild’s director and super salesman, Mr Dewsnip, was very ebullient about the scheme and held seminars around Spain recruiting unlisenced IFAs to help do the work for them based on a Rothschild prepared Power Point Presentation.
Mr Dewsnip asked the IFAs to arrange seminars and personally made many presentations doing the ‘hard sell’ direct to the public. Once people had signed up there were long delays before the money “released” by the bank mortgage was “invested” in the fund and not before huge upfront fees were deducted and then secretly the money was placed in a new fund they set up themselves instead of the one advertised.
When the markets collapsed in 2008, the scheme was seen for what it was and Rothschild started issuing margin calls that victims could not afford to pay, because the value of their collateral was getting low and exceeding the allowed margins. There was very little or no risk to Rothschild, as they had double collateral with the house and the investment. They had no consideration for the poor victims and are now just trying to blame everyone else and take no responsibility themselves.
Fortunately for us there is plenty of hard evidence in the way of promotional material they used and hopefully the Spanish legal system will soon see justice done.
Has Costa Del Sol Action Group Changed its policy? Because when I realised I had been ripped off by Henry Woods I contacted a Steve Bicknell of CDSAG and was requested to pay 100 euros to have a lawyer recommended who would do the necessary to bring Henry Woods to justice. The practice recommended was IURA and we are all aware of how incompetent they were.
I do not like answering to a nameless person, if you believe in what you write why don’t you append your proper name as I do?
What a mess. I feel sorry for all the hundreds of pensioners taken in by these unscrupulous banks and so called financial advisors. There seems little doubt that Rothschild are under the cosh, other wise they would not be belittling themselves in apportioning blame to one of their subsidiaries be it Rothschild International or RM Rothschild. Why not bring RM Rothschild as a second defendant. This frequently happens in the British courts when one arm of the bank denies involvement. If you advertise yourself as Rothschild how are the victims to know which subsidiary is involved. To all these victims the homes were given a mortgage by Rothschild and Rothschils invested the money. This is plain to see in all the advertising that Rothschild distributed around the coast.
I simply cannot understand what Rothschild problem is. They say they had nothing to do with this scheme and they are innocent. If this is the case then why don’t they simply go to court and explain this to the judge. Hopefully the judge is sufficiently experienced in these matter to listen to all the evidence and give his judgement. Why are they ducking and diving. Perhaps they realise they do not have a leg to stand on. Guess what they don’t.
We are two of the lucky ones … Although attracted by the “equity release schemes” being offered by the super slick salesmen, Stephen Dewsnip of Rothschild and Charlie Walton of Premier, we eventually decided that the whole arrangement was just a means of raising capital for investment funds.
When aggregate costs, deductions, commissions and fees were calculated the operation carried a heavy whiff of a glorified Ponzi Scheme in which several companies were intimately linked. The scheme was destined to failure (apart from the fact that it is illegal) because the investment funds that underpinned the loans were in the main a joke. But not so much of a joke for the poor people who were conned into joining them and are now in danger of losing their homes.
Well done Antonio Flores for giving this matter publicity and court proceedings.