Lendy bosses have assets frozen amid offshore investigation – P2P Finance News

Liam Brooke and Tim Gordon the directors of collapsed peer-to-peer platform Lendy have had their assets frozen while administrators investigate suspicious payments to an offshore account.

In the latest investor update, Lendy administrator RSM revealed that it was looking into 6.8m in payments made to entities registered in the Marshall Islands.

Although the money was said to have been spent on marketing services, RSM said that it is the administrators positionthat these payments were ultimately for the benefit of Liam Brooke and Tim Gordon.

On 1 June 2020, RSM applied for a worldwide freezing injunction to be granted over the assets of both Brooke and Gordon, as well as proprietary injunctions on the properties owned by companies linked to the directors RFP Holdings Limited and LP Alhambra Limited. The injunction was granted three days later.

Read more: Lendy investors face prolonged recovery process

Proceedings have now been commenced against Liam Brooke, Tim Gordon, RFP Holdings Limited and LP Alhambra Limited, RSM confirmed in the latest administrators update.

Owing to the nature of these claims, the joint administrators are unable to provide further information at this time. The joint administrators are continuing to investigate the affairs of the company.

RSM also revealed that it has now interviewed Brooke and Gordon, as well as carrying out reviews of the companys books and records, performing detailed analysis of the companys bank statements and reviewing the results of key word searches of approximately 480,000 company emails.

Read more: P2P administrations face delays due to Covid-19

These investigations have revealed a number of discrepancies in the companys accounts. Solicitors Pinsent Masons have been advising RSM on any legal action that may be required.

Earlier this year, RSM received court approval to extend the Lendy administration process by three years, due to the complex nature of the administration process and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the period covered since appointment, the joint administrators have incurred significant time costs in managing the wind down of the loan book, said RSM in the latest update.

As previously advised, the loanbook has proved to be in a considerably worse state than was immediately apparent on our appointment.

As a result, the process to realise secured assets has been more complex, difficult and time-consuming than was first envisaged. It has become apparent there were significant issues in Lendys underwriting and administration processes, which has contributed significantly to the complexity of the wind down and directly led to an increase in costs. As an example, on multiple cases there is a range of litigation directly linked to the historical Lendy practices.

Lendy went into administration on 24 May 2019 with a loanbook valued at 152m. Just under 17m has been realised to date.

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Lendy bosses have assets frozen amid offshore investigation - P2P Finance News