Press Releases

Law firm Pannone is throwing a lifeline to Arch Cru investors by offering free legal advice to help them recover the millions of pounds lost in the investment scandal.

Professional negligence experts will be offering free pro-bono advice to all investors left out of pocket following the collapse of the controversial funds.

The specialist team is also taking on claims,  on a ‘no win no fee basis’,  against financial advisers who recommended  their clients , many of whom  were pensioners, to plough more than £400m into Arch Cru which claimed to be cautiously invested.

The free pro-bono advice will be available to all Arch Cru investors regardless of the value of their investment and Pannone’s specialist team will advise on the best course of action for each individual and what compensation is available to them.

There are currently a number of avenues of compensation available to Arch Cru investors:

Capita Compensation

All investors should by now have received individual offer letters from Capita setting out what sum of compensation is currently being offered to them. That compensation is currently a little over 12% of the original sum invested. This proposal is being challenged and, if that challenge successful, that compensation may be increased.

Sale of Arch Cru Assets

As the assets of Arch Cru are sold, distributions will continue to be made to investors. Some distributions have already been made. However, the final total value to be recovered from the sale of assets remains uncertain.

Financial Ombudsman Service

The FOS will consider complaints against advisors and can award up to a maximum of £100,000 (raising to £150,000 from 1 January 2012) to be paid by the advisor or it’s insurers.

The Financial Service Compensation Scheme

The FSCS can help where an advisor is no longer trading or is insolvent. Investors may be eligible for compensation is up to £85,000.
 
Even with the combination of this compensation, thousands of investors whose investments exceed the limits of compensation payable by the FOS or the FSCS will still be out of pocket.
 
For those investors, it may be possible to recover their money through a professional negligence claim against their  financial advisor. Pannone is offering investors the opportunity to make a claim on a ‘no win no fee’ basis.

Kit Sorrell, head of the specialist professional negligence team set up to help Arch Cru investors, said: “We have a large number of cases where investors were encouraged to invest many hundreds of thousands of pounds in Arch Cru believing that their life savings were in cautious, low risk funds. They have been sorely let down by all those concerned.”

Julia Norris added: “We are offering all investors free advice to make sure they get the maximum compensation available to them. This is the very least they deserve in this latest investment scandal.”

Pannone is the UK leader in acting for investors in negligence claims against financial advisors and has secured compensation for investors in a number of high-profile investments including Keydata Investment Services Limited and Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander (IoM) Lmited.
 
*You can follow our specialist investment claim team on - http://twitter.com/#!/bad_investment

To arrange a discussion with a specialist solicitor please contact us free on 0800 840 4929.