Impasse over cru documents

13 January 2010 3:10 pm | By Chris Salih, Nicole Blackmore

This week’s Money Marketing reveals that the legal company sent cru Investment Management an information request letter on December 23, 2009, asking Maguire to release documents which it says are central to the issues which would be raised in claims of damages, contribution or indemnity by the firm’s clients, only for Maguire to respond in an email “forget it”.

Among the documents Regulatory Legal is keen to review is the disclosure of financial promotions, cru board minutes, the distribution agreement between cru and Arch Financial Products, documentation of the loan made by Arch Financial Products or the funds to cru and documents relating to the investment by cru of monies in Africa.

The £400m Arch cru fund range was suspended on March 13, 2009 due to liquidity issues. Recent estimates show the funds have lost around £144m of assets.

Regulatory Legal and Maguire have locked horns over the launch of their respective IFA action groups. Maguire reiterated he will not cooperate with Regulatory Legal until it confirms its legal challenge is not against cru but against Arch and Capita. Maguire is seeking funding of 0.1 per cent of the original investments subject to a minimum of £125 and maximum of £500 for IFAs to join his action group.

Regulatory Legal partner Gareth Fatchett says it is disappointing that the “supposed IFA champion” has refused to help them at the first hurdle. He says: “We will now make an application to court against him and cru for those documents.”

Maguire says: “What is there to disclose that is not already in the public domain in terms of the brochures? There is only one member of cru staff and the offices are locked and Regulatory Legal wants me to dedicate two weeks of my life to chasing this and that. I would not even know where to find it. They will never get it and that is not because we have anything to hide as Capita has all the information, as do their IFAs through the brochures.”

In an update to advisers earlier this week, Maguire said that unless Regulatory Legal gave assurances that its legal challenge would not be
against cru, “vital evidence” would remain the preserve of his own action group.

He says: “Until they say that cru are taken out of this, I will not support them and their IFAs. Once they do that, I will support them in focusing
on the main event of chasing Arch and Capita.”

Maguire also revealed cru managing director Marc Ainscough had left the firm and said it was now on the brink of liquidation.

If you enjoyed this article, sign up here to receive daily email updates from Money Marketing and Follow @_moneymarketing