The director of the failed peer to peer lending firm Collateral, accused of fraudulently changing the name of his company on the FCA interim permissions register, has told jurors that he “never thought for a minute what I’d done was wrong” adding that “what I’d done has traumatised me“
Collateral (UK) Limited was a finance company which facilitated investments crowdfunded by members of the public. The firm and two related companies entered administration in April 2018.
The two defendants, Andrew Currie, 57, and Peter Currie, 59, both deny two charges under the Fraud Act 2006 and one charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 in this criminal prosecution brought by the Financial Conduct Authority.
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Contemporaneous reporting by Alex Varley-Winter who tweets @avwinter
Defendant Peter Currie in the witness box
Stuart Biggs, the barrister representing the FCA, resumed his questioning of one of the directors of the failed finance firm.
Biggs made it clear they were going to discuss Regal Pawnbroker Limited.
“What you told us was that [the Regal Pawnbroker company] sort of fizzled out. Can we look please … at the email on the 12th August.”
The court was would that Matthew Bonthrone was planning on buying Regal. He had sent an e-mail asking his solicitors to draw up a ‘share purchase agreement’.
Jurors were given access to the agreement. This is part of it:
Peter Currie, commenting on a subsequent £10k payment into Collateral’s accounts, said “that was the initial payment, yes.“
Biggs: “It’s the payment that’s to be made following completion sale of the shares.”
Peter Currie admitted that “we received that … the first £10,000.” but averred that “the shares weren’t transferred though.”
Biggs referred to condition 4.2 of the agreement “on completion the buyer shall pay the seller the first instalment.”
Peter Currie denied that the sale of Regal Pawnbroker completed: “Matthew wanted me to stay on as a director. The share transfer didn’t happen, the resignation didn’t happen, and they were happy with that.”
Biggs explained that on 6th October 2015, the registered office address of Regal Pawnbroker changed. “You’d sold it, hadn’t you?“
Peter Currie denied this: “No, I hadn’t sold it.“
Biggs said that on the 8th October 2015 “you also changed the FCA Register so that” a new address showed. It was said this was after receiving the “£10,000 in September, the month before.”
Biggs: “Back to the bank statement please. On 22 January 2016, there’s [another] transfer, from Fitzwilliam Black, of £10,000, isn’t there.”
Peter Currie: “Fitzwilliam Black paying Collateral, yeah.“
Biggs: “£40,000 of debt in the company. And the purchase price was £40,000. Is that related?“
Peter Currie: “No.“
Biggs referred to an e-mail from Sunday 1st October 2017. This was from Matthew Bonthrone to Peter Currie (forwarded to Andrew Currie) attaching a ‘Fitzwilliam Black Funding House deal template’, undated and unsigned, outlining that Andrew and Peter Currie sold them their pawn broking business and referring to Collateral as ‘partners’
Another e-mail in this thread, apparently sent by Peter Currie, began ‘Hi M’. “I wouldn’t address him as ‘M’” said Peter.
Biggs: “There seems to be a separate payment in January.“
Peter Currie: “I’m still a 100% shareholder in the company, to the very end.“
Biggs: “[You’ve argued] in terms of what you should have done [e.g. instead of changing the name on the FCA’s register], was just use Regal and change the name of Regal. But you’d been paid £10,000 [for Regal].“
Peter Currie: “The other £20,000 didn’t come. It wasn’t going anywhere. As I say, it fizzled out.“
Biggs: “It wasn’t an option to use Regal was it. … because you’d already sold it…?”
Peter Currie: “I was still a director and shareholder.“
Biggs: “We agree on that [that he was a director of Regal] … Collateral had to have the badge of being authorised and regulated by the FCA?“
Peter Currie denied this: “Didn’t have to have … Didn’t have to have …“
Biggs: “You’d still have done it, you’d still have wanted [that]?“
Peter Currie: … “it was a Consumer Credit License, yeah. It made sense to continue with the Consumer Credit License“.
Biggs: “It was a pawnbroking license wasn’t it?“
Peter Currie: “Yeah.“
Biggs: “Collateral wasn’t going to do any pawnbroking?“
Peter Currie agrees.
Biggs: “Even if you were allowed to transfer the license to Collateral, there was no need to do it? … Getting investments from individuals was a very different thing to what you’d done before … you were limited in how much you and others in the Pawnbroking industry could raise.“
Peter Currie: “No.“
Biggs: “You needed to continue with your business of lending against secured assets. A new way to raise investment … The thing you were going to try was to use the internet... You were going to look to not just the institutional investors [but also] individual investors … if you use the internet … and it worked! Because by the end you were bringing in a £million a month.“
Peter Currie: “Yes it worked”
Biggs: “You didn’t have experience of that because that wasn’t something that Regal had done. The lending site didn’t need regulation but the investing site might well need regulation.“
Peter Currie: “When the application went in and the questions started coming back from the FCA, that was when it became clear that we needed legal advice.“
Biggs asked if, when it came to any shift into Peer2Peer lending, whether “pawnbroking is a dirty word”?
Peter Currie: “It is with the banks.“
Biggs: [Speaking in terms of what the banks want] “This is authorised regulated investment” [is what you’re saying]
Peter Currie: “Yes. [but] … what we were saying — “it’s money secured against assets” — is more important.“
Biggs: “They are both important aren’t they.“
Peter Currie: “[being regulated] is not as important as secured lending.“
Biggs: “Not as important, but it is important?”
Peter Currie: “I wanted everything to be correct, above board.“
HHJ Griffith interjected here, to refer back to what several investor witnesses had said: “‘I would not have lent my money if they were not regulated.’ You’ve accepted that?”
Peter Currie argued this did not apply to Bond Mason, who “were pushed down the route [by the FCA] of trying to say that, but they said their business wasn’t regulated. A lot of the investments that they did were with unsecured lenders.”
Biggs: “What Mr Findlay [of Bond Mason] said is that it wasn’t sufficient for them to be FCA regulated, and if they hadn’t been it wouldn’t have necessarily been a “no” but that they would have carried out other checks.“
Peter Currie: “All of the individuals, it would have affected things … but it wouldn’t have been a deal breaker.“
Biggs: “All of the individuals, if you’re not a sophisticated investor, if you don’t want to take a risk, it’s going to be an important factor isn’t it?”
Biggs referred the court to an email from December of 2015 concerning a potential investor. It is said this new investor can put in £30k of his own money and raise “in the Region of £400K – £650K“
The investor is sent a “brochure that said it was regulated.“
Biggs continues: “That isn’t describing investing in Collateral as a company, it’s describing investing in the loans that Collateral offers. It’s talking about bringing wealthy people, high net worth individuals to Collateral, so that they can invest in those things. Tilki is saying to Giorgio that they’ll start introducing those individuals, introducing individuals into Collateral’s standard model.”
Peter Currie: “Yep“
10th Dec 2015 – an e-mail is received.
Biggs then suggested what happened next: – “Giorgio to invest … £30,000.” … what this is suggesting to you is that there are individuals that Giorgio can bring to Collateral and Mr Tilki can bring to Collateral who between them will add £650,000 …
Peter Currie: “It was yet another nonsense email, it was Metin saying ‘this is what I can do, this is what I can do’. In all honesty he didn’t bring in a great deal of investment.”
Biggs: “On the 12th December you’d changed the register. And do we agree that that was because you wanted to say that [Collateral] was authorised and regulated?“
Peter Currie: “It probably was yeah“
Biggs said that the register “allowed you to use a number of different trading names for Regal. In order to do that you had to contact the [Office of fair trading] … you know full well, don’t you, what a trading name is … let’s go back to the register as we see there were a number of changes.“
FCA audit log for the period between 23/08/2013 and 18/12/2013
FCA audit log for the period between 18/12/2013 and 29/01/2018
Peter Currie suggested he ‘”could have gone on Companies House and changed the trading name” of Collateral.
Biggs: “But if you’d changed the name … Matthew would have been unhappy with that because he’d paid you £10,000” [for the purchase of Regal].
Peter Currie: “I think he would have been fine with it because nothing was happening.“
The court is shown a document from the ‘Consumer Credit Interim System User Guide’. This is FCA issued guidance on how to change the details of the firm on the interim register.
Biggs: “change firm details” was ‘Step 2’.
Peter Currie: “… I thought that if you can change anything, it was allowed.“
Biggs: “… A firm can change its name, yeah, [but] It’s a completely different concept, isn’t it, to move a license from one firm to another firm.“
Peter Currie: “I could have changed it to anything, yeah.“
Biggs: “You could have changed it to “Barclays Bank” …
Peter Currie: “In the Register can you make the change? —- no because they link it to Companies House now.“
Biggs: “Back then they maybe checked it a bit … the firm name could be changed obviously to allow for the situation of if a firm changed its name. …What is the point of the [Office of Fair Trading] coming in [inspecting] and giving the company the license if you could just give that license to somebody else?“
Peter Currie: “That is what I thought the FCA would be doing, as part of the application“.
Biggs asked Peter Currie if he thought that once a company was on the interim register: “any kind of regulated activity, you could do it?”
Peter Currie: “You can only undertake the activities that you have put on the application form.“
Biggs: “That’s not what it says and we can look at it, and just as a matter of common sense put you back in your shoes that you were in at the time.“
HHJ Griffith read out a question from the jury regarding Regal Pawnbroker: “If the sale didn’t go through, did you pay the £20,000 back from the Collateral account to Matthew Bonthrone?“
Peter Currie: “No.“
Biggs: “Why not?“
Peter Currie: “He’d moved onto other things, he was funding some mine in Australia, but I carried on speaking to Matthew right up until the end of Collateral.“
Biggs: “… you can put down on the application form any regulated activity that you fancy having a go at, and then you’d be interim regulated for it, is that what you thought at the time?“
Peter Currie: “We instructed Simply Biz to walk us through that process.“
Biggs: “That suggests interim permission was really important because it was a gateway to do whatever you wanted.“
Peter Currie: “It was just a renewal of the license.“
Biggs: “What mattered in practice was being able to say to investors ‘we are authorised and regulated’ … it was a commercial imperative“
Peter Currie defended his actions by explaining that he had taken “professional advice on everything that went out, those were all approved by our professional advisors.“
Biggs refers the jury to an e-mail dated 15th December 2015, “it was from you to Metin Tilki” he put to Peter Currie. One statement in the e-mail claimed Collateral was “authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority”. Furter on it says there are “£1.5 million in loans under management“.
Peter Currie: “No, I think this was a figure I think this was something Metin wanted in there, these figures weren’t true figures … the thing about it being the best on the market, those were true”
Biggs: “”£1.5 million in loans” was made up was it?“
Peter Currie: “He wanted something substantial in there.“
Biggs: “What was the true figure?“
Peter Currie: “10% of that.“
Biggs: “… he wanted you to, but you agreed to send him an email that multiplied the true position by a factor of ten, to make a false representation to them and persuade them to invest.“
Peter Currie: “I’d rather stand here and tell you the truth.“
HHJ Griffith: “Keep that thought in your head. That figure was made up?“
Peter Currie: “Yeah.“
HHJ Griffith: “From your knowledge, the deadline for interim permission was running out. April 2015-16“
Peter Currie: “Right.“
Biggs: “That application went in a week before deadline. … So this email was a lie, yeah?“
Peter Currie: “No.“
Biggs: “That bit of it was a lie, it was actually £150,000“
Peter Currie: “Yeah.“
Biggs turned to the subject of the Collateral bank accounts: “It’s about April, May when the balance starts going up. … so by this point Collateral was up and running for five or six months. And it’s got loans according to the the information that was supplied by the FCA in that point in time … The £1.5m had gone up to £2.25m but you are saying the £1.5m was a fiction anyway?“
Peter Currie: “Yeah.“
Biggs: “These loans are all either to Andrew Currie (as Asset Cash)
Peter Currie: “Not to him“.
Biggs: “The entity was Asset Cash.“
Peter Currie: “Not necessarily there was a number of brokers that put in the loans.“
Biggs: “They are either through directly or they are to Stewart Day or Sarah Gayton. Had he brought all of this in through the five or six months? … there also were all the contacts that he’d had from previous businesses. [In 2017:] there are some very big property deals there, that’s all Andrew Currie in terms of being the conduit … and so without Andrew Currie there’s no Collateral, there’s nothing.”
Peter Currie: “There’s still the basis for it, but we would have had to go to other brokers“
Biggs asked if he could have filled his brother’s role.
Peter Currie: I’ve got an idea but it’s not my strength, no.
Biggs: “Your strength was really doing the administration … adding the numbers on the interest [asks if that was automatically done on ‘the system’]“
Peter Currie: “No, it was a manual process …“
Biggs: “But we all agree that wouldn’t happen if Andrew wasn’t bringing in the loans?“
Peter Currie: “Yes.“
The Court was shown correspondence between Andrew Currie and Regal Pawnbroker’s compliance officer Ken Wareing dated 24th June 2015.
Biggs: “Mr Wareing is saying, do you agree, that Andrew Currie stated that he wanted to keep Regal going because of its potential of the internet.“
Peter Currie agreed.
The exact line in the e-mail was: “it was Andrew who insisted he wanted to keep it on because of its potential via the website enquiries and potential funding from several London based sources“.
Biggs: “Was the TV show something that you did together?“
Peter Currie disagreed.
Biggs: “Mr Wareing wanted his money back, yes?“
Peter Currie agreed.
A previous e-mail had alluded to an apparent £95k debt.
Biggs: “And ultimately you paid him?“
Peter Currie: “Yes.“
Biggs: “Regal was your joint business with Andrew“
Peter Currie: “No … it was with Ken“
Biggs: “But Andrew would be doing any loan valuations.“
Peter Currie: “Yeah. … he was key to the valuations yeah.“
Biggs: “Yeah, he owed half of Ken’s sum.“
Peter Currie: “Yeah.“
Biggs: “Right. Let’s go on …“
The court was shown correspondence about Regal Pawnbroker in May of 2017, where Andrew Currie suggested privately to Peter Currie, that they should offer three creditors who have not yet been paid ‘£500 a month’ to settle the debt. Stuart Porter, of Adimus Ltd, also observes that Peter Currie is speaking ‘very highly’ of Collateral UK at industry events and that it is a ‘family business’.
The background to the dispute is briefly summed up in a memorandum of understanding.
Peter Currie suggested they could make an offer with a confidentiality agreement in place as “they might make a noise after they get a settlement“.
Andrew’s response is that they should “offer £500 per month until we are in profit“.
Peter Currie denied that they were wholly dependent on Andrew Currie as a broker. They were part of the ‘foundation of small businesses’ and so “we would have started bringing business in through other brokers”.
Biggs asked about what they did at industry events: “Is it the case that Andrew does most of the talking?“
Peter Currie: “No … Andrew would be networking but he wouldn’t be on the stand. He wouldn’t stand on a stand for eight hours like I did.“
Biggs asked if the purpose of Collateral was to “find a new way to fund Andrew’s loan book”?
Peter Currie: “No.“
Biggs turned to an email that Peter Currie sent to Connor Thompson, Business Development/Administration Assistant at Simply Biz, nine days after he had edited the name of Regal Pawnbroker to Collateral UK on the FCA’s interim register.
Peter Currie: “No we’d changed the name. … What I meant by restructure is that we were looking to [move] into bridging loans …“
Biggs: “What you said to Mr Thompson wasn’t right was it. … Simply Biz wanted to see correspondence from the FCA setting out your landing slot. … So you had to tackle that problem … the way you tackled it was by writing this email and it wasn’t true.“
Peter Currie: “There’s ambiguity …. [arguing that on the interim register it was possible to have “50 different names” for a company]“
Biggs: “But you agree you hadn’t changed the trading name. … What you could have said, was that you could change the company.“
Peter Currie: “If the FCA accepted it then I didn’t need to explain it to anybody. He said he’d checked the register and it’s fine.“
Biggs: “It was down as Collateral.“
Peter Currie: … “I wish now that he’d [figured] out that there was an error there. … they’ve [speaking about the FCA] got a duty of care to ensure that their register was accurate. I never thought for a minute what I’d done was wrong. What I’d done has traumatised me, It changed my life completely … I thought that they’d go [through] everything tooth and comb. … Robert Cooper said that this had happened a number of times … surely that would have been a simple thing for anybody to have checked.“
Peter Currie: “I didn’t think I needed to explain it … you can see with all the legal and professional advisors … I was just honest with you about that email. I’m honest with everybody.“
Biggs took Peter Currie through Collateral’s application form with the FCA.
Biggs: “Any unregulated business activities – No”
Peter Currie: “Yes, that was wrong.“
Biggs went through some of the other answers and noted that some were incorrect.
Peter Currie disagreed: “No, I’d say it was a confusing and complicated application form … that was the situation as I believed it was at the time.”
Biggs asked if he had ever spoken to his brother about being regulated: “You wanted to have a way to get more money into the business yeah?“
Peter Currie: “I honestly don’t think we ever had that conversation.“
Biggs: “You didn’t phone him up, and say ‘Andrew, I’ve just been able to transfer that [license] over to Collateral?’“
Peter Currie: “I didn’t discuss it with anyone, I didn’t even discuss it with my wife. The shock when this hit her …“
Biggs: “I have no doubt, but this was a game change for the business.“
Peter Currie: “Yes it was.“
Biggs: “But you didn’t discuss it with the co-director … ?“
Peter Currie: “I honestly didn’t think ‘this is it, fill me boots’ I just thought, if it couldn’t have been changed it would have been picked up, right away. … the next email I got from the FCA was the application form for Collateral. … I never even thought there was an issue with any of it.“
Biggs: “[re. 12th December 2015] You’re looking at a sign that some of you can change a firm name and you thought you can move it across to Collateral [asking did he tell Andrew?]“
Peter Currie: “He wouldn’t have been interested, he wouldn’t have been interested in any logins anywhere.“
Biggs: “No, he would only be interested in money, wouldn’t he.“
Peter Currie: “Yes, yeah he would.“
Biggs brought up a series of emails, starting from April 2015, on Article 36H and how Collateral changed its position on whether or not they need to comply with it. Culminating in 26 May 2017, when the company lawyer Richard Tall is telling the FCA that the company is showing “an abundance of pragmatism and not an admission that Collateral has been conducting business unlawfully”.
Biggs: “I’m suggesting you changed your position repeatedly [on whether they needed to comply with 36H]“
Peter Currie: “My lawyer did.“
Biggs: “Surely Collateral did.“
Peter Currie: “On legal advice.“
Biggs: “On legal advice, yeah.“
Peter Currie: “His position was, it was outside regulation.“
Biggs: “Although it takes a long time Collateral was changing its position backwards and forwards?”
Peter Currie: “Because of the FCA’s position, it was their view that P2P was a regulated activity … it did change.“
…
Peter Currie: “There were various things that the FCA took issue with … with the website“.
Biggs: “… and you again pass on Mr Tall’s advice, Gary Kershaw’s advice.“
Peter Currie: “So overall I completely accept your point that there was a delay or changes – this is a complicated application“
Biggs suggested it was a complicated business.
Peter Currie: “No, it was a simple business and I would have welcomed the FCA coming in, I didn’t think it was a complicated business.“
Biggs: “From a regulatory perspective, however complicated … you could explain the concept.“
Peter Currie: “Bridge lending is done by [loads of people] … Richard Tall told us it was outside of regulation.“
Biggs: “If you hadn’t been able to claim that you had interim permission then you would just put in a fresh application with through a new company. Every day that the application would have trundled on would have been a day without investment.“
Peter Currie: “I didn’t have any idea when we put in the application that it would have taken that long.“
Biggs: “and your brother didn’t want to wait that long“
Peter Currie: “I’m not saying that at all. … could have started taking money straight away, the advice that we had was that everything was outside of regulation anyway. … we could have taken all of that without regulation.“
Biggs: “How many times did you sit in a room with Richard Tall … to discuss this matter?“
Peter Currie: “Ten.“
Biggs: “And how many times was Andrew with you?“
Peter Currie: “Two.“
Biggs: “And how many calls with Richard Tall?“
Peter Currie: “Numerous calls.“
Biggs: “Numerous?“
Peter Currie: “Yes.… The changes [to the register] were accepted, had the FCA written to me [about the name change] I wouldn’t have done it. … [I] didn’t tell anybody, didn’t tell my wife.“
Biggs turned to events of 2018
On the 29th January 2018 there is a letter to Peter Currie from the FCA. It’s titled ‘Part 4A application in the name of Collateral (UK) Limited’.
Biggs: “There had already been concern expressed by the FCA … that what the website was doing went beyond the Interim Permission.“
Peter Currie: “Yes“
Biggs, seeking to clarify what Collateral’s position was, rhetorically asked: “You could put down anything on the application for full authorisation and you were then allowed to do it because it was on your application form? … The line I think you relied upon was about seven lines down [in a Dec 16 email] where it says … at the time that Regal applied for interim permission on the basis that it had an OFT license it was to continue as a pawnbroker wasn’t it?“
Biggs: “It couldn’t possibly be the case could it, that you could apply for whatever you like, and then be allowed to do it the next day?“
Peter Currie: “I didn’t know, and the Authority didn’t know either.“
…
The court heard that Peter Currie wanted to put a notice up on the website informing investors as to what was happening.
Biggs: “One way to contact them would have been to email them wouldn’t it?“
Peter Currie: “I would have needed legal advice on that … I got that legal advice 12 days later, on the day that I was supposed to respond to the FCA by.“
Biggs showed the jury a letter from DWF to Peter Currie.
Biggs: “And as the jury’s been told we are not concerned with Mr Tall’s opinion but we are concerned with what we are being told at the time.“
‘This is serious I’m afraid … the FCA view would be that this was done intentionally with a view to mislead. Regal Pawnbroker has been dissolved hasn’t it?’
Biggs sought to establish if Richard Tall “didn’t know Regal Pawnbroker was anything to do with the firm Collateral”
Peter Currie: “He would have got that information from the email from the FCA.“
Biggs asked what Peter Currie did when the ‘balloon went up’ – when the FCA discovered the incorrect name on the interim register.
Peter Currie: “I told everyone in the office.“
Biggs: “You told them that you’d changed it and that you thought it was alright to change it?“
Peter Currie: “Yeah.“
The court is shown an e-mail from DWF to the FCA dated 7th February 2018.
Some pertinent points were read out including where it’s said the change was a “misunderstanding of separate legal entity … matter of commercial expediency” and attention is drawn to the “immediate steps our client has made to remedy the situation since the error it had made was pointed out to it”.
Biggs: “The system let you do it, so you thought you could?“
Peter Currie: “Yeah.“
Peter Currie: “At the time I thought I could transfer from one to the other, the sale of Regal [Pawnbroker] didn’t conclude, I was still a 100% shareholder.“
Biggs: “Richard Tall was saying that you didn’t understand that the two companies were two separate things. Did it matter to you whether it was true or not?“
Peter Currie: “Of course it mattered. …“
Biggs: “Commercial expediency” – what does that mean?
Peter Currie: I don’t know.
Richard Tall had emailed his client on 8th Feb 2018.
Biggs: “Mr Tall was getting twitchy wasn’t he, because you didn’t have any money on account?“
Peter Currie: “He had about 10 hours on account …“
Biggs said that Peter Currie had withdrawn the application for authorisation in a letter dated 12th February.
Peter Currie: “I was anxious to let [the investors] know what the situation was … isn’t it better for them to see [the information] on the Platform, it’s better to see it in my view. [arguing that that investors could receive something like 600 emails from Collateral in the course of business, so] Most of them wouldn’t have read it …”
Biggs: “Did you think of doing both?“
Peter Currie: “No.“
Biggs referred the court to an email of 12th February 2018 from Richard Tall to Peter Currie.
Peter Currie: “If we’d been in breach of the general prohibition, all of those loans wouldn’t have been enforcable. Who would have they been protecting? It definitely wouldn’t have been the investors. … They were all secured against assets.“
Biggs: “They would’ve been due money from Collateral itself.“
On the 13th February the FCA chased up their request for information about the investors. “Dear Mr Currie, further to my email of yesterday please can you provide an explanation of when you’ll provide the client data requested in my emails of 29 and 31 Jan 2018.”
Peter Currie replied saying his “compliance adviser said it wasn’t secure to send client information by email.“
Biggs: “Who was advising you that you couldn’t give the FCA the names and addresses, contact details of your investors?“
HHJ Griffith interjects to confirm with Peter Currie that his advisor at this point was the ‘in house I.T. guy’.
Peter Currie also said “I actually didn’t have the data to send by that time anyway. … I asked [the FCA officer] if we could have a secure link to send the data”.
Biggs: “Was the truth that you didn’t want the FCA to have the names and addresses because the FCA would contact them?“
Peter Currie: “No … there was concern … [that if investors were told] “these loan agreements are not enforceable” it would have looked like they lost their money and that was certainly not something that I …“
…Biggs asked if they were in breach.
Peter Currie: “There may be a claim we may’ve been in breach, these are all ifs, buts, maybes.“
Peter Currie said he wanted to put up a notice on the website and asked the FCA for permission: I asked “can you please let us put that notice up on the website, and it took them 18 days to approve it.”
The court was then shown a graph of the balance within the Collateral client account.
Biggs: “On 23rd February there’s £800,000 in the client account at this stage. … and then payments went to Andrew Currie but they don’t say Andrew Currie do they, they say ‘payments to brokers’. And is that by design they don’t say ‘payments to brokers’?“
Peter Currie: “No …“
Biggs: “After that last chunk of broker payments [you’ve left] a balance of £336,000. From £1.3m down to £336,000. … that’s a massive adjustment, isn’t it?“
Peter Currie: “Any invested funds could be withdrawn from the account at any time …“
Biggs: “The money for your brother’s broker fees, the money to Auri, and this adjustment, was over a £million. It was done at a time when you knew the company might be shut down and that there might be legal claims.“
Peter Currie: “I didn’t know that there might be legal claims … I thought that the company would be able to continue to trade. … we had all the figures on the dashboard, unfortunately we weren’t able to access that any more. … further down the line everything had been disabled.“
“[meanwhile …] As mentioned previously we [were taking] advice as to whether we were inappropriately advised by our previous advisors. … we were happy to provide data as long as we can do it in a [secure] way [refers to seeking legal advice].“
Peter Currie forwarded on advice from JMW to the FCA on 26th February 2018.
Peter Currie: “JMW wrote this email so their position was that we couldn’t provide the names and addresses [of the investors] to the FCA .“
Biggs asked if on the 26th February 2018 “did you mention that you and Collateral were about to go into administration.”
Peter Currie replied that the phrase ‘orderly wind down’ were ‘JMW’s words’.
A response was sent from the FCA on 27th February: ‘I can assure you that the information will be held by the FCA in accordance with the Data Protection Act’.
Biggs: “It wasn’t until the FCA happened to pick it up on a forum that they got any information that the firm was going into administration.“
HHJ Griffith read out a question from a member of the jury.. It concerned the last paragraph of the letter:
‘If there is going to be any difficulty in getting the information to me this afternoon they should contact me immediately.’
“Did you?“
Peter Currie confirmed he did not.
“You’re getting whacked from all sides [with requests from the FCA]… the timescales are getting shorter and shorter and shorter. … I should have just said we are going to be going into the wind down policy but at that time I was trying to keep everything going …“
Biggs (asking about): “The money that was transferred to Andrew Currie’s personal accounts, I think you argue don’t you that you authorised those payments because those were due to him as brokers fees?”
Peter Currie: “Yes.“
Biggs asked about Andrew Currie’s role as director.
Peter Currie: “Andrew had signed on to assist me, he was the one that was going to help.“
It was said the brothers were still handling ‘the Ken Wareing issue’ – Regal’s former compliance officer, who needed paying.
Peter Currie talked about Andrew’s motivations as director: “I think it was probably doing for me what I’d done for him. … at that time the business had closed down and I had no money in the bank accounts.“
Biggs moved on to look at the payments to Auri Developments Limited. The director of Auri was Sarah Louise Gayton who, as revealed in court previously, was Andrew Currie’s partner.
Peter Currie said he “just took Andrew and Sarah’s word for it” on what property they were investing in. “I knew that she was going to need to buy it to sell it” …” And “I honestly think if we’d got that development … that would have been very profitable for the company.”
Biggs turned to the interview that Peter Currie did at Blackpool Police Station on 10th November 2020. He told the two investigators from the FCA that he “didn’t know much about Auri”.
Biggs: “The amount that’s lent is … £120,000 which is exactly what Sarah Gayton needed.”
Peter Currie: “It wasn’t lent, it was transferred.“
Biggs: “There’s a sale agreement. The amount that’s transferred is £120,000 which is exactly the amount that she needs to do the purchase.“
Peter Currie argued that the property purchases “would have absolutely been in the interest of the company because that million would [become] £1.5 million“.
Biggs: “What did you know about the property in Spain?“
Peter Currie: “I didn’t know at the time …“
Biggs: “Did you go there?“
Peter Currie: “… I knew that she had bought a property in Spain, I didn’t know what“
Biggs: “Were you staying there?“
Peter Currie: “No.“
[Cross examination finished]
His Honour Judge Griffith explained that he had another case starting the following week but “you’ve got priority. So we’re not sitting in this case on Monday afternoon. Come in at 10.30. I’ll give legal directions followed by the prosecution speech. … I’ll sum the case up on Tuesday.“
The Judge said there is a backlog and “a lot of work and not enough court time to do it in“.
The trial continues.
Both Curries deny two charges under the Fraud Act 2006 and one charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
The first count of fraud alleges they dishonestly made a false representation to investors and potential investors that the company Collateral UK Limited was authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
The second count of fraud claims the Curries abused their positions, in which they were expected to safeguard, and not act against, the financial interests of the company by transferring £275,000 from Collateral to Auri Developments Ltd.
The third charge relates to converting criminal property, suggesting the Curries converted credits to the total value of £372,299.52 to bank accounts owned by Andrew Currie, knowing or suspecting it to be proceeds of crime, namely fraud by misrepresentation.
Case details:
Court 12 Southwark Crown Court
Before His Honour Judge Griffith
12th May 2023
Case number: T20220056
CURRIE Andrew
CURRIE Peter
The Financial Conduct Authority are represented by barrister Stuart Biggs, assisted by Thomas Coke-Smyth.
Peter Currie is represented by barrister Colin Aylott KC, assisted by Ashley Hendron.
Andrew Currie is represented by barrister Henry Grunwald OBE KC, assisted by Oliver Renton.
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Mouse in the Court 
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