We will continue to fight for clients mis-sold by Liberty Sipp after the self-invested personal pension provider (Sipp) announced the sale of its trading assets.
Liberty assets
Embark Group has purchased the trading assets of Liberty. This will not halt the cases we have already brought against the Sipp provider.
The sale comes only weeks after we issued an additional 65 legal cases against Liberty Sipp, bringing the total cases lodged with the courts to 95.
We also issued a total of 725 complainants against Liberty Sipp to the Financial Ombudsman Service on behalf of clients.
Our clients
In total, our clients have lost over £18 million after investing their pensions with Liberty Sipp. The majority of clients were introduced to the Sipp provider by unregulated introducers including Avacade. Avacade is now being investigated by the serious fraud office.
Embark Group initially confirmed that the firm has professional indemnity insurance, designed to cover claims such as these, and that Liberty Sipp will operate until complaints are completed.
However, we discovered that John Fox, managing director of Liberty Sipp has now contacted clients asking them to accept transfer of their contracts to EBS Pensions Limited. This is a subsidiary of Embark Group.
We remain in dialogue with the Sipp provider’s legal team to seek clarification on the level of insurance cover available to pay compensation to our clients. We will pursue all avenues available to ensure victims get redress.
Our thoughts
Our expert Glyn Taylor said: “This quick sale confirms our suspicion that Liberty Sipp has mis-sold thousands of clients. Not the small number they continually referred to in the media.
“They are attempting to leave liability for previous clients with the Liberty Sipp company as it is wound down. This could make the compensation process for clients more difficult. It will only add to the suffering of clients who have already lost tens if not hundreds of thousands.
“We’re concerned that clients are now being asked to move their contracts to EBS and they have no insight on how this will affect their complaints. We advise anyone who is pursuing a mis-selling complaint against Liberty Sipp to avoid transferring and they should wait until the situation can be clarified.”
The continued pursuit of justice follows the news that we recently secured five positive rulings from the FOS. These were for clients whose pensions were invested into similar high risk investments by Sipp provider Guinness Mahon after introductions from Avacade.
We are also making complaints on behalf of clients against other Sipp providers. These include Carey Pensions and Berkeley Burke.
If you’re a Liberty Sipp client, get in touch to find out if you fell victim to mis-selling. Our team of experts can help you take the next step.