Cuatrecasas, Goncalves Pereira law firm, second by turnover in Spain, has confirmed to lawyers acting for Landsbanki victims that Lex Life and Pensions SA used their name illegally when promoting the Lex Life Capital Assurance in Spain.
According to the deceptive publicity of the ignominious Luxembourg-based company, the named firm had been involved in preparing the sham Equity Release product.
This is the paragraph in question:
Our product, Lex Life Capital Assurance-Spain, has been developed in cooporation (sic) with the law firm CUATRECASAS (www.cuatrecasas.com), “Best Spanish Firm of the Year 2005, International Law Office”.
The advertising also attributed this product the following advantages:
Spanish IHT has a ceiling of 34%, but depending on personal circumstances, the amount can go up by 2.4 times.
The Lex Life Capital Assurance-Spain is an excellent, tax compliant way of mitigating tax exposure and safeguarding inheritance tax.
Cuatrecasas strongly denies any involvement with the above and has confirmed to lawyers acting for the victims that they are considering legal action against the company, or their successors.
Thieving opportunists who enjoy safe haven in impenetrable “offshore” tax havens from where they prey on the old and vulnerable …. stealing their lifesavings under the guise of offering “financial advice” through their network of criminal agents posing as “financial advisors”.
Who is most guilty?
Those who devise the frauds, those who execute the frauds or those who protect the fraudsters?
As was mentioned by pjames in a recent comment, banks will use whatever means are available to sell these products, knowingly that either the law firm or accountants do not support these products. As we all know such blatant, criminal and misleading information attract poor unsuspecting and I’ll informed pensioners to subscribe to these products. Disgraceful.