The serial entrepreneurs behind collapsed litigation funder Woodville were attempting to raise funds for car finance redress claims through a separate corporate entity in the runup to its collapse, the Gazette can reveal.
Woodville, which claimed to invest in law firms running motor finance redress claims, went into administration on 16 July this year. On 17 June, two directors of the business, Ann Marie Bell and Peter James Legge, appeared in a webinar entitled Unlock the Power of Litigation Finance, inviting investments in 'Kairos Digital Loan Notes' for a return of 15% in 12 months.
Kairos Litigation Limited, incorporated in February this year, describes its business as 'administration of financial markets'. Companies House lists its directors as Ann Marie Bell, born in 1973 and Peter James Legge, born in 1974. Bell and Legge are also listed by Companies House as directors of litigation funder Horizon Legal Group, which shares a Pontypridd, Glamorgan, correspondence address with Woodville.
According to the London Gazette, administrators were appointed into Horizon on 2 July following High Court proceedings.
Read more:
Litigation funder appoints administrators after court action
Consumer Legal Association hits back at FCA motor claims campaign
The 17 June webinar was hosted by Luxembourg-based Black Manta Capital Partners and is still available on YouTube. In it, Bell appears to invite investments in a €50 million 'fixed yield' fund to support claims under the Financial Conduct Authority's motor finance redress scheme. The FCA strongly discourages the use of solicitors and claims management companies in redress claims.
Invited by the host to explain 'the background on the car financing FCA redress framework for motor finance', Bell stresses that it is 'process driven' rather than adversarial. 'We are not looking for a winner-loser scenario. We already know that these cases will settle. There's a decision by the UK Supreme Court that governs ... the strategy for these cases to be compensated and because there this is such a widespread mis-selling abuse in the UK and there are so many millions of affected motorists and finance providers that the Financial Conduct Authority the FCA in the UK deemed that a redress scheme is necessary.' Kairos is not dependent on the outcome of claims to make monthly interest payments, she states.
Opening the webinar, host Alexander Rapatz, chief executive of BMCP, warns that investing in digital loan notes involves 'significant risks' including the possible loss of investment capital. Kairos does not appear on Black Manta's current list of offerings, which include invitations to invest in Indian real estate and Irish whiskey. BCMP has been approached for comment.
Bell has been invited to provide more details of the digital loan notes.
Woodville's demise will prompt questions about the regulation of litigation funding and the wider issue of loan notes, high-risk debt instruments currently under investigation by the FCA.
A company called Integrity Protect No 1 Limited, founded in 2015 and of which Bell and Legge are directors, describes its business as 'Credit granting by non-deposit taking finance houses and other specialist consumer credit grantors.' According to The Times newspaper, it was placed under restrictions by the FCA in 2022 following concerns about its handling of loan notes. The company's accounts for 2022 are listed as overdue and an active proposal to strike-off is in place.
In December last year the government announced plans to 'implement proportionate regulation of third-party litigation funding agreements'. The role of banks in failed loan-note schemes is also under scrutiny. 'It is a national scandal,' Martin Richardson of specialist fraud redress firm Richardson Hartley told the Gazette. 'The FCA seems to have fallen asleep at the wheel.'
