Alastair Dobbie Investors Lose

Alastair Dobbie investors lose even more money as a Judge orders investors to pay.

We are hearing reports of a failed legal claim brought by investors who had signed up to be represented by Alastair Dobbie of Shortlands Law – LINK to website.

We have been concerned about the activities of Alastair Dobbie, Roberto Pancaldi, Nico Bruyniks, Gian Luca Fetta and others who call themselves “Investor Co-Ordinators”.  Most of the Investor Co-Ordinator team are people who sold the original scams to investors.

Last month Shortlands Law brought a legal claim for investors in the Northern Powerhouse Developments scam.  This was the first scam the Investor Co-Ordinators were involved in selling.  Since that scam was exposed, the same group have misled investors into paying for representation in the Carlauren scam, the Qualiacare scam and the St Camillus scam.  All of this on the back of a promise of a much better outcome for investors which has never materialised.

We are told that the Judge in this latest Northern Powerhouse Developments claim, Judge Briggs, was highly critical of Shortlands Law’s conduct.  When considering the merits of the claim he informed the Shortlands’ side that “the application was misconceived and without legal basis”.  At this point, before the Judge was able to deliver his judgement, the claim was withdrawn.

It does not surprise us.  We have been saying for a long time that investors should be represented by a solicitor experienced in insolvency if the action relates to an administration or liquidation,  or by a solicitor experienced in complex property matters if the action relates to their leases.  It is ridiculous for them to use a firm specialising in family matters and divorce and a part-time lawyer tainted by his role in the sale of several scams and who a previous law firm employer described in a witness statement to court as being ‘incompetent’.

The Shortlands Law team was forced to withdraw the claim in order to avoid the public embarrassment of a judgement being made against them, but Judge Briggs ordered that the costs incurred by the NPD Administrator and the fees of its legal team must be paid by the investors who brought the case. 

That’s the danger investors face when they instruct an incompetent lawyer who brings a claim which a Judge describes as having no legal basis.  It’s like needing a heart operation and believing your local butcher when he says “I see hearts every day. It can’t be that difficult.  I’ve got this idea of how to get you fitter and healthier than any surgeon.  It’s never been successful yet, but give me £1,000 and I’ll give it a go. Absolutely no refunds.”

Shortlands Law has been using Investor Co-Ordinators to persuade ordinary investors to pay £1,000 each to be represented by them.  Shortlands Law and Alastair Dobbie have made a tidy sum during what are tough times for many people.  It would have been very bad for the Alastair Dobbie Investor Co-Ordinator Recovery Room Scam to have a judgement recorded against them.  It would have made it clear to investors that Alastair Dobbie doesn’t know what he is doing and it would seriously jeopardise the fundraising efforts of their Investor Co-Ordinators who are busy trying to persuade other victims of scams to pay fees to Alastair Dobbie and Shortlands Law.  I’m sure they would have liked to have had the withdrawn claim swept under the carpet, but that’s not possible when a court has declared that ordinary investors have to foot the bill.

As we have pointed out in our previous articles, neither the Investor Co-Ordinators, nor Alastair Dobbie, nor Shortlands Law, have ever confirmed whether investors’ money is used to pay some of the people who sold the scams.  They are very opaque on how investors’ money is being used.

One final point on the Qualiacare scam.  A solicitor representing a Qualiacare investor wrote to ask the FCA whether they had given any consideration to the Alastair Dobbie / Investor Co-Ordinator proposal i.e the purchase of the freeholds for £1 each from Robin Forster and the somewhat complex creditor solution (which isn’t a solution at all).  This is the same approach Alastair Dobbie has insisted can be used in several scam cases and it has never been successful.  It is simply a case of telling investors what they want to hear and then charging them £1,000 each to work on something that has never been achieved.

The FCA confirmed that they had never received any proposal from Alastair Dobbie, Shortlands Law or Robin Forster.  We were surprised by this because most lawyers would have written to the FCA right at the start with an outline proposal before they spent a lot of investors’ money on something that may not be acceptable to the FCA.  No investor in NPD, Carlauren, Qualiacare or St Camillus has recovered any more money through paying fees to the Alastair Dobbie Investor Co-Ordinator team.  The Nico Bruyniks / Roberto Pancaldi / Gian Luca Fetta Investor Co-Ordinator scam is a money-making scheme for people whose primary business of selling scams has collapsed.

The key thing to take away from this article is that victims of a scam were tricked into paying money to the people involved in selling the scam.  They were told that it was a group of investors, but it was really a group of sales agents.  Investors were told the group could help them recover more money.  That was a false promise.  All investors who paid those fees are worse off.  One group of NPD investors are now much worse off because not only have they paid fees to Shortlands Law and Alastair Dobbie, but now they have a Costs Order against them for an aborted claim and will have to pay the opponent’s costs.

We will publish the a link to the transcript of the hearing as soon as it becomes available to the public.

To view our previous article on the Investor Co-Ordinator Recovery Room Scam click here – LINK.  We spend a lot of time reporting on recovery room scams and have covered this group of “Investor Co-Ordinators” in several articles.