This is only of use for those that invested in Dolphin Trust DC 80. It will not help those that invested in Red Rock.

Any of the documents on this page may be downloaded and used to help victims of this fraud take their case forward.

If you want to find out where your money has gone you will need to do some investigative work. At this stage our options are limited to finding out what happened to our money in the UK. The investment prospectus provided assurances that our funds would be controlled and protected by Bottermann Khorrami LLP (BK Law) including the surety of a first legal charge. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

As a reminder of what was supposed to happen and the contractual terms of the Loan Notes, take a look at the Marketing Brochure - Page 4, item 5.

This is reinforced in the presentation material Dolphin hawked around to lull investors into believing our cash would be properly handled and secured. Take a look at the following slides of this presentation. Slide 6 bullet point 5. Slide 12 bullet points 3 and 6. Slide 14 states that the Irish office prepared the Loan Note offer (LNO) document i.e. they engineered the wrong bank account details. On the same slide point 5 states "The investor sends the funds direct to Bottermann Khorrami (BK Law) by Bank Transfer".

Bank Accounts

This is a list of the bank accounts members have reported and the true identity of the receiving beneficiary. None of these accounts belong to BK Law:-

Sort Code A/c Number Beneficiary Bank

20 06 05 80007870 TTT Moneycorp Barclays

30 96 18 54561868 WTUK Ltd Lloyds

30 96 18 46564960 WTUK Ltd Lloyds

30 96 34 01033744 WTUK Ltd Lloyds

30 96 18 46331360 Whites FX Ltd Lloyds

30 96 18 55683568 WTUK Ltd Lloyds

30 96 18 57217968 WTUK Ltd Lloyds

15 10 00 24260839 Dolphin Trust RBS

Note: WTUK Ltd and Whites FX Ltd are Whites Group.

Whites Group - They are not a named party in any of the promotional material / prospectus nor in the contractual Loan Note documentation. As can be seen from the table above they were the true owners of the Lloyds bank accounts, not BK Law.

One of our members has kindly shared an email thread with them. On 14 May 2020 Whites Group state that investor funds were remitted to BK Law. Our member then presented Whites Group with a letter from BK Law stating that BK Law never received the funds. Therefore, on 28 July 2020 Whites Group changed their story stating that the funds were sent to German Property Group. This is exactly what was not meant to happen.

The email can be found here.

If your investigations result in a reply from Whites Group claiming that they had no idea that funds were destined to go to BK Law then they are being economical with the truth. We have hard evidence to the contrary. Get in touch for further guidance.

Dolphin Trust continued the pretence that funds were being sent to BK Law. One of our members was sent this letter dated 12 March 2015 i.e. over 6 months from the date from which BK Law claim to have ceased their relationship with Dolphin Trust. The letter states "This letter is further confirmation that your funds have arrived with our appointed lawyers Bottermann Khorammi". This was a lie. As has already been demonstrated the funds were remitted to Whites Group.

This is the Loan Note Offer document the investor received. The payment beneficiary is stated as "BK Law - DC80 - 5 year loan note". The bank account details are sort code 30-96-18 account number 46564960 which we now know belong to Whites Group. The penultimate paragraph on page two states "Once we have received the signed Loan Note Offer letter and your investment money has been banked by our appointed German Lawyers (BK Law) you will receive a signed Loan Note Certificate in your welcome pack". The investor received the Loan Note Certificate but BK Law never received the funds.

And this is the Loan Note Instrument the investor received. Note the reference to BK Law in sections 1.1 and 7.1

Banks - Before proceeding with this it should be noted that none of the banks have admitted any liability and thus not compensated anyone so far. However, taking the complaint to the bank means they have to provide a "final decision" response. This states that you are then permitted to escalate your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

Note that FOS have a compensation cap. Given our timescales then for most of us this is £160k. Details are are on the FOS website. Following a brief telephone conversation with FOS the representative stated that this is per financial organisation. But check this out for yourself. We are also led to believe that this limit is in addition to any FSCS claim(s) you may have. Again, it is strongly suggested you double check this.

If your documentation states that your funds were remitted to BK Law and the above list tells otherwise you may like to raise your concerns with the remitting and receiving banks. Such correspondence should be headed as a "Formal Compliant" and state your desired outcome i.e. you want them to refund your money.

Remitting bank - Until 28 May 2019 there was no requirement for banks to check the payee against the account number and sort code when conducting electronic payments such as BACS. This guide explains the new rules. However, if your investment was by cheque then the legislation is very different and you may be in a better place than others. The Cheques Act 1992 and The Bills of Exchange Act 1882 apply in this scenario. This is explained on this page. Go to the drop down section called "Can a cheque be paid into the account of someone other than the named recipient?"

There is a school of thought that the banks rushed the introduction of BACS. As a consequence they circumvented the previous stated legislation solely on the grounds that their IT systems were not sophisticated enough to comply. Lawyers may develop legal argument to support this school of thought but in the meantime there is nothing to stop any of us from pursuing claims through the normal channels.

In addition, acquaint yourself with the case law of Barclays Bank plc v Quincecare Ltd. There are many references to this from a Google search of "Quincecare". This Wikipedia page gives a good synopsis.

Receiving bank - If your remitting bank are elusive then consider making a complaint to the receiving bank. In the majority of cases funds went to Lloyds Bank. The emphasis here is on the fact that funds were destined to arrive in an account owned and operated by BK Law. Confirmation that BK Law never received investor funds post 03 September 2014 can be found here.

Lloyds Bank email address for complaints: OnlineComplaints@lloydsbank.co.uk

Lloyds Bank CEO is Mr Charlie Nunn: Charlie.Nunn@lloydsbanking.com

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) - There has been much criticism that the FCA are not regulating the UK financial sector with sufficient rigour. The scandal surrounding the London Capital & Finance plc debacle is a prime example resulting in the independent investigation and report by Dame Gloster published 10 December 2020. The report is extensive and damning. One of the key recommendations states:-

Recommendation 2: the FCA should ensure that its Contact Centre policies clearly state that call-handlers: (i) should refer allegations of fraud or serious irregularity to the Supervision Division, even when the allegations concern the non-regulated activities of an authorised firm

This is located on page 293 of the report, page 305 of the PDF document which can be found here.

Initial concerns about a regulated firms activities can be reported here in the first instance: consumer.queries@fca.org.uk

If the FCA response is not to your satisfaction then formal complaints about the FCA's lack of action can be sent here: complaints@fca.org.uk

Serious Fraud Office (SFO) - Fraud reports can be made here. The SFO have asked that reports should make reference in the ‘Report details:’ box on the form to REF14446.