Insolvency And Law Threatens Closure

Insolvency And Law Threatens Closure.

This is our third article covering the activities of Peter Murray, Insolvency And Law Ltd, Marcia Abbott, Britena Clarke and Gill Clow.

During a recent email exchange between Peter Murray and a company which issued a Statutory Demand against Insolvency & Law Ltd, Peter Murray threatened to close down Insolvency and Law Ltd if it were to face a demand for £100,000. Mr Murray informed the company that it would not recover a single penny from Insolvency And Law Ltd because he would close it down and he would “just simply continue to trade from another company“.  The Statutory Demand was for the sum of £410,000 which is well in excess of the £100,000 level which would be enough, in Peter Murray’s view, to cause him to close down Insolvency And Law Ltd. Where would that leave the many investors who have paid upfront fees to Insolvency and Law Ltd ? Insolvency And Law has taken a lot of money from High Street GRP investors and the situation doesn’t look good if Peter Murray puts Insolvency And Law into liquidation. We covered this in our first article – LINK.

Claims Management Company Regulations + FCA Cap On Fees That Can Be Charged.

The FCA regulations briefly describing what constitutes claims management activities can be viewed on this LINK to the FCA website. Insolvency And Law has been carrying out points a) and c).

In March 2022 the FCA imposed maximum fee caps on what a Claims Management Company (“CMC”) can charge. Here is a LINK to the FCA fee cap table. The table shows the maximum a CMC can charge is £10,000. Any investor who has an investment of £50,000 or more is capped at a maximum fee of £10,000. This fee cap includes all upfront fees + all commissions on money recovered + all “costs” charged by the CMC. The CMC is allowed to add on court fees and other legitimate disbursements, but cannot charge any internal costs for its staff or work it has done itself. We know of investors who have already paid more than £10,000 in upfront fees to Insolvency And Law Ltd. They are already above the maximum cap level and are entitled to a full refund !

If any investor is concerned about the activities of Insolvency And Law Ltd and the payments they have made or are likely to be charged we recommend they contact [email protected] using this reference in the title of their email “FCA Ref: 208633546“. The company which is reclaiming the £410,000 has reported Insolvency And Law Ltd to the FCA using that reference.

Peter Murray of Insolvency And Law Tricks Investors Into Signing Away Their Rights

When High Street GRP Ltd went into administration Peter Murray of Insolvency And Law Ltd offered to represent investors in the administration for free. A lot of investors signed forms authorising Peter  Murray to represent them. They believed he was an insolvency professional in “an award-winning company”. We’ve already exposed that fake awards scam. Peter Murray was able to use those forms to have himself installed on the creditors’ committee of the HSG administration. There’s no problem with anyone representing investors for free on a creditors’ committee.

He then persuaded a number of investors to pay an excessive upfront fee for a dubious legal action. Investors entered into a contract titled ‘Third Party Action Services Agreement’ (“TPASA”). This contract breached the FCA CMC regulations. We have a copy of that TPASA.

In May 2023, either as a result of FCA enquiries or as an attempt to deceive investors into signing away their rights, Peter Murray wrote to the TPASA investors. We have copied the email below:

From: Marcia Abbott <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, May 9, 2023 at 2:25 PM
Subject: High Street GRP, Castle Trust and Management Services Ltd, Hadrian Real Estate PLC
To:
Cc: Peter Murray <[email protected]>

Dear Loan Note Holder

UPDATE

Re High Street GRP (HSG), Castle Trust and Management Services Ltd (CASTLE TRUST), Hadrian Real Estate PLC (HRE) jointly known as the Parties

Further to our most recent update, please take note of this this update and act accordingly.

You will recall we informed you of the advice received by our lawyers. Prior to the commencement of us taking legal proceedings against any of the abovementioned Parties, we were advised to first to write to those Parties with specific request and give them an opportunity to respond. Well, we have done that and received no substantive response from either of the Parties. As a consequence, we have therefore instructed our lawyers to commence the legal proceedings against the abovementioned Parties.

The legal proceedings is being commenced in the High Court in London in the form of an application to require the disclosure and delivery up of certain documents and information. We are of the opinion the disclosure will allow us to follow up with further substantive legal proceedings against such Parties in the recovery of Loan Note Holders funds. Due to this short working week, we anticipate the legal proceedings will be filed at Court next week.

In the meantime, due to the course of the legal proceedings, all Loan Note Holders in support of this course of action is required to enter into a substitution agreement with I&L, which effectively is an assignment of your rights as a Loan Note Holder to I&L so that I&L has the right to commence these proceedings for the Loan Note Holders. We confirm Loan Note Holders will not be required to meet the costs of these legal proceedings. I&L are solely liable to pay these costs and any adverse costs that may be ordered in favour of the Parties. For those Loan Note Holders who have already paid their 3% when entered into our Third Party Services Agreement have nothing more to pay. I&L will remit 80% of the Recovered Funds direct to those Loan Note Holders who are party to these proceedings without further formality.

Please now await no more than 2 business days to receive from us two agreements (1) Release from our Third Party Services Agreement and (2) substitution in favour of our Third Party Assignment Agreement. You will need to complete where required and return to I&L without delay and in any case by 4pm Monday 15^th May 2023 should you still wish to be part of these proceedings.

Please respond by email if you have queries.

Kind regards

Peter Murray

Director

Insolvency & Law Ltd

Some points to note about this email are:

1. Peter Murray admits that he has been providing claims management services on behalf of a group of investors; and

2. Investors are only given 6 days in which to sign over their rights. The reason given is that Insolvency And Law Ltd intends to file applications at court “next week”; and

3. Peter Murray mentions his “lawyers” and their actions several times (we believe he isn’t using a law firm); and

4. Insolvency and Law Ltd is charging investors a 20% commission which is above the level for any client who invested £50,000 or more. That cap is 15% up to the £10,000 maximum and no more should be paid once the I&L has received £10,000.

Investors were required to sign an ‘Agreement To Release’ contract which released both parties from the TPASA and to enter into a ‘Deed Of Assignment’ contract. We have copies of both documents.

The problem is that, not surprisingly, Peter Murray did not give investors the full picture. The Deed Of Assignment (“DOA”) the investors signed was not just to enable Insolvency And Law Ltd to file legal actions with the court the next week (which by the way were never filed). The DOA contained a clause which gave Insolvency And Law Ltd ownership of the debt and the loan notes themselves. Investors effectively signed away all their creditor rights to receive a payment direct from the Administrators of High Street GRP should one be made in the future. They are no longer creditors.

We know of investors who have asked Peter Murray for the name of the lawyers he is allegedly using for the HSG case. He has refused to tell them claiming it is confidential.

In May 2023 Peter Murray cleverly managed to go from offering a free representation service to creditors in HSG, to his company Insolvency And Law Ltd owning the rights to all payments for the investors who signed the DOA.

We have written to Tony Hyams, Lloyd Hinton and Carrie James to ask them whether Insolvency And Law has notified them of its replacement as creditor for those investors who signed the DOA. We have not yet received a reply. We have also asked them a number of other questions about the administration. We recommend that any investor who signed a form allowing Peter Murray to represent them and who has not signed a DOA should cancel that representation and take back control of their entitlements in the administration. Peter Murray now has a great incentive to work only for himself. Insolvency And Law has removed a large number of investors and is now a significant creditor of High Street GRP Ltd. It may be worth HSG investors contacting the Insolvency Service to ask them to look into it. There is a named officer at the Insolvency Service who is looking into everything to do with High Street GRP. His name, email and phone number are listed on page 10 of the latest Administrator’s Progress Report which can be freely read or downloaded from Companies House using this LINK.

We also know of an investor who signed a DOA with Insolvency And Law Ltd and which contained the four payment percentages we described in our first article (copied below).

10% + vat if the debt is undisputed by the company and is paid; or

20% + vat if the company disputes the debt; or

30% + vat if the company has to file a claim e.g a winding up petition; or

40% + vat if the company ends up in administration or liquidation.

The company was already subject to a winding up petition. The investor therefore believed that he would be charged 10% + vat. Insolvency And Law Ltd is demanding 30% + vat + their unspecified costs. The reason is because the only thing they have done is sent a notification to the petitioner. That classifies as “filing a claim” in the view of Peter Murray. The investor could have done that himself because it is easy and free. It would have taken him 10 minutes. Charging 30% + vat for a 10 minute job is immoral, unjust and example of sharp practice. The investor had already paid thousands of pounds in upfront fees. This should serve as a warning for anyone who is considering entering into a Deed Of Assignment with Insolvency And Law Ltd.

What’s Next

We still haven’t covered Britena Clarke and her deliberately lying to the court in a witness statement. We won’t do that until the case is concluded out of respect for the court process. We have told her it was noticeable that Peter Murray led all the activity and communications with the company, but when it came to submitting a deceitful witness statement he got her to sign it and not him. That’s a sign of someone who knows exactly what he is doing but is happy to put someone else in the frame. We have no sympathy for her because she knew what she was doing, but we wonder what incentive he promised her which persuaded her to lie to the court.

To view a more recent update on the Insolvency and Law Scam please click on this LINK TO ARTICLE.

Insolvency And Law Threatens Closure.