Insolvency And Law Scam Collapsing – Part One
This article is relevant to 79th Group investors (“79G”), Godwin Capital investors (“GC”) and High Street Group investors (“HSG”). There may be investors in other investments who have signed a Deed Of Assignment with Insolvency and Law to whom this will also apply.
Peter Murray is the shadow director and driving force behind Insolvency And Law, but he uses this man below, Robert Dene Smith, to front the company for him. Peter Murray is currently hiding out in Africa (last known location was Nigeria) and isn’t keen on returning to the UK. Robert Dene Smith has fronted companies for Peter Murray before.
For the above companies the Insolvency and Law Scam is very simple. I&L informs investors they are eligible to enter into a Deed Of Assignment if they pay an upfront fee. I&L makes a commitment to pursue recoveries on behalf of the investors (although that commitment is very weak because the contract gives I&L the right to do nothing if it so chooses) and it promises to share the proceeds of any recoveries to an agreed formula.
However, the reality is that I&L is only really interested in taking upfront fees from investors. All the rest is a smokescreen because it had no lawful right to take upfront payments from investors in the first place or to make any claims in administrations, liquidations or against any third parties at all. As we will outline later in this article King’s Counsel legal advice is that the Deeds Of Assignment are unlawful and unenforceable.
After it receives the payment, Insolvency And Law gives the appearance of pursuing claims but this is just a show. The real intention is to drag things out for as long as possible so that investors don’t realise they’ve been conned and don’t ask for their money back until many years later. By that time they’ve given up and have put their losses behind them.
How Does The Scam Start?
The 79th Group case is a prime example of how Insolvency And Law work. Here are some sentences taken from emails sent to 79th Group investors:
“A settlement may be reached at any time. However, only loan notes which have been assigned to Insolvency & Law Ltd (“I&L”) will be included in any negotiated resolution”. [They put those words in bold].
“Following our review of the documentation provided, we can confirm that your Loan Note(s) qualify to be assigned to I&L for enforcement and recovery of their principal value, along with any applicable contractual interest. This may also include associated claims (“choses in action”) against third parties involved in the promotion or sale of the Loan Notes, including the Security Trustee”. [They put the words ‘qualify to be assigned’ in bold].
That seems pretty clear cut. They say they’ve reviewed the documents and they’re advising investors that the loan notes can be assigned to them.
Why Is It A Scam?
Had Insolvency And Law genuinely reviewed the documentation of all three companies like they said, they would have seen the same clause in each of the Loan Note contracts which forbids assignment or transfer of the loan notes without the written permission of the companies.
For 79th Group that restriction is also repeated in the one page Certificate, Conditions and Redemption Notice issued to investors and included in their documentation pack where it states on the certificate “The Notes are not transferable or tradable”.
The problem Insolvency and Law now face is that it is clear it didn’t review the documentation of any of these three companies. They only said that to fool investors into believing the assignments were completely legal with the intent to deceive them into paying an upfront fee.
Insolvency And Law has already tried to argue in court that the 79th Luxury Living Five Ltd assignments were legal without the permission of the company, but the Judge made it clear that was nonsense and requested I&L provide him with evidence of written permission so he could decide whether I&L was a legitimate creditor or not. They could not provide the evidence and withdrew their objection to the appointment of the Administrator.
What Is The Impact Of The Restriction In The Loan Note Contracts?
The Administrators of HSG did not bother to check whether the assignments claimed by Insolvency And Law Ltd were lawful. This was a failing on their part. The Administrator of the GC companies has only recently been appointed and hasn’t yet adjudicated on creditor claims. We expect he will disallow I&L’s claims. However, Kroll Advisory, the Administrator of a large number of 79th Group companies, decided to instruct a King’s Counsel for advice on the legality of the assignments. Insolvency And Law had submitted itself as a creditor of the companies. The advice Kroll received was that the restriction in the loan note contracts makes any Deed Of Assignment obtained without the written permission of the companies, unlawful and unenforceable.
The KC also advised there was a substantial weight of legal precedent confirming that it was not possible to separate the debt owed under a loan note from the ownership of the loan note itself. In other words, you can’t own the debt without owning the loan notes. As the contracts prevented I&L from owning the loan notes it cannot therefore own the debts.
As a result, Insolvency And Law is not a creditor of companies in administration or liquidation and cannot make any claims against any third party in reliance on those Deeds Of Assignment. It is clear I&L misled investors into believing the loan notes qualified for assignment when they did not and investors in all three companies are entitled to a full refund.
Consequently, Kroll Advisory has refused to recognise any of the assignments as lawful or enforceable and has informed Insolvency and Law that they are not a creditor of the companies. Kroll has written to the original investors to inform them that they are recognised in the administrations as the true creditors and I&L is not. Insolvency And Law now has no choice but to challenge the Administrator’s decision in court because it will undoubtedly now be hit with a lot of demands from investors in all three investments to refund the upfront fees they were duped into paying.
We regularly monitor court filings to see if any of the companies we are interested in are involved in legal actions. We have discovered that Insolvency And Law made a filing on 21st October 2025 with the reference CR-2025-007341. We assume that is a challenge to the Kroll decision which will be very interesting considering I&L doesn’t take legal advice and chooses instead to rely on AI to make its legal arguments!
As it stands, Insolvency and Law cannot enter into any new Deeds Of Assignment with investors in 79G, Godwin, HSG or any other investment where there is a clause restricting assignment or transfer because, having been informed the Deeds are unenforceable, it would be obtaining money from investors by deception. Equally, it cannot make any claims against any third parties because it would be fraudulent misrepresentation. It is not entitled to receive compensation. The onus is now on Insolvency And Law to prove the legitimacy of those assignments.
The Insolvency And Law Scam Defence
The Insolvency And Law Scam defence is really rather weak. I&L is now claiming it does not have an assignment of any loan notes! It is arguing that it has assignments of debts generated by the loan notes and not of the loan notes themselves. It is I&L’s position that it can own the debts without owning the loan notes. It seems it has asked AI and that’s what it was told.
We assume the request put to AI was “give me the defence arguments in loan note disputes”. That’s not very useful unless you add “and tell me what the Judge said about those defence arguments”. If it had added that last statement it would have seen that the arguments all failed. However, that has not stopped I&L from quoting those cases and cherry-picking some of the failed defence statements to try to persuade investors. We’ll cover that in more detail in Part Two.
I&L’s latest position in respect of the 79th Group assignments contradicts the statements made to 79th Group investors (see the two examples above where it is clear I&L was talking about assigning loan notes). It also certainly doesn’t apply to HSG investors where the Deed Of Assignment makes it explicitly clear that the investor is assigning loan notes. In summary, the I&L argument doesn’t stack up. It owes refunds to investors and should pay up.
In our next article on Insolvency And Law Scam Collapsing – Part Two which will be published later this week we will describe the legal action taken by a 79th Group investor against Insolvency And Law and the outcome of that action (bottom line – I&L paid up but tried to avoid liability and impose conditions on the payment which weren’t accepted by the investor). We will also cover I&L’s latest attempts to prolong the HSG saga in order to stall investors from asking for refunds and we will go into detail on the doomed AI arguments I&L has been using to try to defend its position (which have already been discredited by experienced barristers who specialise in Deeds Of Assignment and Contract Law). We are hoping one of the 79th Group investors will be able to obtain copies of correspondence from Kroll Advisory on this matter which they would not object to being made public.
To view a previous article on this website concerning Insolvency And Law Ltd please click here.
To view an article and comments on the bondreview website please click here.
If you are a 79th Group investor you can report this matter to the City Of London Police officers who are investigating 79th Group under Operation Mold. They should pass it on to another department for investigation. Please click here to go to the Operation Mold reporting page.
Insolvency And Law Scam Collapsing – Part One
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