LETTER TO LANDSBANKI CUSTOMERS ARE SENT BY FIRM LAWBIRD LEGAL SERVICES
Dear Sir/Madam,
We are due to soon file proceedings against Landsbanki Luxembourg S.A., Lex Life Luxembourg S.A. (and/or its successor) and Offshore Money Managers.
The main reason for the delay in filing has been due to our firm considering, in the light of the content of writs submitted by Landsbanki Luxembourg, that a claim for misleading advertising should include also excerpts of the cases where Landsbanki lawyers admit –in at least there occasions- that the main reason why this product was offered to the public was as means to -legally- reduce or mitigate Spanish Inheritance Tax.
These crucial undertakings by Landsbanki lawyers indicate that the bank willfully engaged in marketing and selling a bogus tax planning scheme, as confirmed by the Spanish Tax Office in 2013. More so, Landsbanki lawyers confirmed that a brochure explaining the inheritance tax planning was give out to all clients and that this was therefore one of the main reasons, if the principal, for property owners to acquire an Equity Release.
The case is therefore aimed at establishing whether the advertising was truthful or not and where not, from the point of view of an average reader, if the content would have been explicit enough to persuade readers to acquire the Equity Release Scheme. This signals a departure from classic the case argument aimed at establishing misselling of financial investments took place and rather concentrates on the tax mitigation perpective.
It is only through this strategy that we will be able to request that art. 1,306 of the Civil Code is applied to these cases, the only real option to avoid having to repay the draw down if there is a successful outcome.
Article 1,306. If the deed which constitutes the unlawful cause should not constitute a crime or misdemeanour, the following rules shall be observed:
- Where both contracting parties are at fault, none of them may recover what he has given pursuant to the contract, or claim the performance of what the other should have offered.
- Where only one contracting party is at fault, he may not recover what he has given pursuant to the contract, or demand the performance of what he should have been offered. The other, who was a stranger to the unlawful cause, may claim what he has given, without the obligation to perform what he should have offered.
Along with Landsbanki and the successor of Lex Life, we have decided to issue proceedings against OMM (Offshore Money Managers), a pseudo-IFA who was nonetheless prolific in their advertising efforts to bring customers and banks together.
Finally, the firm Cuatrecasas –no longer acting for Landsbanki or Lex Life- has confirmed in writing that they never contributed or cooperated in providing any tax planning advice, contrary to what Lex-Life advertising stated; this statement automatically renders the advertising untruthful.
With respect to potential foreclosure action by Landsbanki, we will request that the bank is served with an injunction preventing them from enforcing the mortgage loan rights they hold.
Best regards
Excellent. Excellent and more like the Justice we all deserve. Great work Antonio.
I am not sure why Lawbird have taken so long to reach this opinion. Personally I think it misses the point. There may well have been misselling but much more relevant is the clear fraud perpetrated by employees of Landsbanki ahead if its liquidation. This is due to be tried in the criminal courts in Paris next month. If these are proven then you wonder what defence the liquidator can raise to charges of covering up such a fraud ie money – laundering. Any evidence of these would lead to a negation of the mortgage contracts in dispute.
It would be more effective if the Spanish firms supported the French in allegations of fraud ( of which there is plenty of evidence – I have some myself ) rather than push rather weakly for misselling claims.
Perhaps Lawbird has exercised deliberate restraint before entering litigation … Thieves who launch fraudulent financial products are themselves supported by influential crooks, including lawyers, accountants, auditors and (other) bankers. Those involved are aware that their activities are illegal and they are equally aware that, due to the numerous legal jurisdictions they entangle in their frauds, it is (almost) impossible for the law to identify the primary criminals …
Add to this the “professional associations” who “support” their “associates” providing further cover for dishonest activities … an example the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) recently ruled that even if the international accountancy firm Deloitte had knowledge (discovered during the course of audit) suggesting that (pensioner´s) bank transfers were obtained by deception (a criminal offence) Deloitte was not obliged to report this activity to ANY regulatory authority anywhere in the world.
In other words these slippery snakes are well prepared to shake off legal action against and are highly practiced in deploying cunning defense strategies to avoid prosecution all carefully put in place BEFOE they even launch their frauds against innocent people… and when their nefarious activities are scattered between unregulated, and secretive tax havens such as Luxemburg, Guernsey, Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands they become almost impossible to arrest.
Law-of-contract clearly states that contracts or agreements entered into under coercion /deception are consequentially void and all capital/assets must be returned to the original bearer … But in a tax haven this “law” is easily circumvented by re-registering companies (often under the same name) and then attributing blame to the original company which no longer exists whilst the successor company blatantly continues to rob vulnerable people.
After many years attempting to recover £millions stolen from pensioners by companies registered in off shore tax havens JFP has learnt that there is no depths of depravity that this scum will not stoop to rob innocent people in the knowledge that it will be very difficult for their victims to respond.
That is until Lawbird took up the challenge …
We agree with you comments about carefully planned escape routes being the primary interest of the architects of these financial scams those main concern is always ….
“what to do if someone takes legal action against us or complains to the police”.
Although in many cases they avoided any serious retaliation by targeting defenceless pensioners, like ripping-off the life savings of an 80 year old widow living alone as one company based on the Isle of Man (not Luxemburg this time) did.
Regulation? Don´t make us laugh!
As we have come to realise in the past unless one needs to get the facts together and present them in a correct otherwise there case will be lost in court. It is so important in litigation to collect as much evidence you can in the way of a paper trail, the courts pay far more attention to the written word than they do to the spoken word. As we have witnessed in the recent court case in the Mercantile Court Malaga against Nordea Bank Luxembourg, where Jesper Herz the Nordea representative lied through his teeth. Certainly for defendants they do not have to take an oath to tell the truth as is the case in England and other more civilised countries, so they are permitted to lie. Presenting hard written evidence such as brochures and letters from the firm of lawyers as one can see in this particular case leaves little doubt as to who the guilty party is and very difficult to argue against. Whereas in a pure case of misselling it is far more complicted and many arguments that can be introduced to cast doubt on the outcome.
One of the main concerns for we the victims is we are not in a position to pay back the money we took when we entered into these fraudulent schemes and even if one won the case in court we would only be able to claim back the money that was lost. This has can be seen from the recent post on Danske Bank who lost a recent misselling case . The courts did not award any compensation to the victims who had to pay back the money they initially drew down. I think going the route that Lawbird have decided upon is better and much easier to prove and with the added advantage of the possibility of the victims not having to pay back the initial drawdown. We can only see what happens.
Anyway, congratulations to Lawbird in finally collecting and producing the evidence need to convince the courts to rule in our favour.
We are in fact great supporters of the Landsbanki victim group in France as they are for our cause. In fact we are in touch with Tom Paige on a very regular basis, where we exchange ideas evidence and strategies. Antonio Flores has been in touch with Bernard Maingain their lawyer but there is only so much we can get involved in, unfortunately this does not include any legal action in France as the courts do not have jurisdiction over any Spanish misselling, mortgage deeds and criminal cases.
There is no question in our minds that this is not only a classic case of misselling whatever country it would be litigated in, however in Spain there also appear to be a case of criminality. In both these cases it can take years for them to come before the courts, so it is important that every scrap of evidence be found and presented in the writ as you only have one shot at it. To rush going to court half cocked could result in disaster for the victims. Is it not better to take ones time dot all the eyes and cross the tees before submitting the writ to the court.
The aim is to have the courts ‘null & void’ the mortgage deed and get Landsbanki off the escritura and land registry. at least this will give the victims some peace of mind and allow them to sell the property without it being encumbered by the bank.