The long running dispute between the failed peer-to-peer firm FundingSecure and an art dealer who fraudulently hoodwinked 1,400 members of the public out of £2.3m has settled, the mouseinthecourt can exclusively reveal.
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Reporting by Daniel Cloake.
In October 2022 this site reported that the Court of Appeal had confirmed a decision, made a few months prior, that the art dealers family pension fund could be used to repay the debt owed.
The litigation started in July 2018 after the peer-to-peer company FundingSecure, which collapsed in 2019, became “seriously alarmed” after discovering that art work pledged as security in a pawn loan had in fact been sold at an auction in New York.
A full background to the sorry tale can be read in “Great Green Art Fraud – How FundingSecure lenders were scammed“.
The art dealer, Matthew Robert Green, 55, was imposed with a world-wide freezing injunction at the time. He subsequently fled to Spain.
Following the entry of FundingSecure into administration the rights to this litigation was sold to a quartet of individuals who are understood to be investors in the underlying loans.
According to a document sealed by the High Court yesterday (4/1/23) we can reveal that the parties “entered into a Deed of Settlement and Release dated 1 December 2022“.
In the document judge Mr Justice Edward Johnson ordered that “The Freezing Injunction be discharged … with effect from 10am on 9 February 2023.“
This site understands that even with the Court of Appeal ruling that the pension fund could have been accessed, the amount available would not have been enough to satisfy the underlying judgment debt, and therefore the freezing injunction would have continued.
It is not known whether additional sums were put forward by Mr Green or his family, or what is ultimately contained in the settlement agreement.
It is also not known when funds will ultimately be returned to investors, although under the terms of the litigation assignment only 25% of the recoveries from these proceedings will be paid to FundingSecure. The remainder will go to the four-investors who took on the risk of this litigation.
Case Details
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES
BUSINESS LIST (ChD)
Between:
(1) David Bacci
(2) Michael Boyle
(3) Paul Mundy
(4) Marek Zwiefka-Sibley
(By way of an assignment dated 27 March 2020 by the Administrators of FundingSecure Ltd)
Claimants
– And –
Mr Matthew Green
Defendant
– And –
The Trustees of the Richard Green (Fine Paintings) Executive Pension
Scheme
Interested Party
Mouse in the Court 
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