Charles Cunningham, a businessman from the UK, has blamed a group of Malaysian businessmen for the controversy he is facing.
Cunningham, whose stay at Eton overlapped with that of Prince William, has been named as the mastermind of a multi-million pound property development fraud targeted mostly at investors from the Far East and Southeast Asia.
High Court papers showed that Cunningham used a series of companies to defraud Asian investors by enticing them with property developments in the UK that were never completed.
One of such companies was Absolute Living Developments (ALD), which marketed five large development projects within northern England to investors.
Boasting developments in Bradford, Manchester and Runcorn, ALD, however, went into liquidation in April 2016. In fact, the High Court has recently granted liquidator Louise Brittain a £14.5 million freezing order to prevent steps by Cunningham and his business partner to dissipate or secrete assets from ALD.
The freeze order came after the liquidator discovered that a significant “portion of the monies owed and/or paid to ALD…had been wrongfully diverted” to three companies, namely DS7, Gozon and EPG Manlet.
According to Brittain, the three companies “form part of a complex structure of entities under the control” of Cunningham and his alleged business partner, which was used to defraud investors, most of whom were from Hong Kong and Malaysia.
In denying the allegations, Cunningham is confident that the High Court will overturn the freezing order once he presents a forensic report establishing his innocence.
“These monies were not wrongfully diverted and a forensic report is currently being prepared which will establish the exact payments and the legitimacy of those payments made by these companies,” explained Cunningham.
“The freezing order is a cynical abuse of power. DS7 categorically refutes all claims and allegations made by Louise Brittain and it will challenge the injunction and debunk any allegations with the very facts and evidence that they have deliberately withheld.”
The liquidator revealed that ALD would usually take 50 percent of the purchase price before it even acquires the property. Investors complained that the properties were never completed.
While he admitted that some of the projects had not been completed, Cunningham claimed that a group of Malaysian businessmen were the true owners of ALD.
Image sourced from This Is Money.
This article was edited by the editorial team of PropertyGuru. To contact them about this or other stories email editorialteam@propertyguru.com.my
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