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A couple, who had successfully developed and then sold a number of businesses in the UK, had decided, as they approached retirement age, to relocate to Australia. Before doing so, they deposited approximately £5m with Barclays Bank. This was in early 2007.
Even though Barclays Bank were aware that the move to Australia was imminent, subject to immigration checks, etc., Barclays Investment Management offered to invest some of this money into short term, low risk, life assurance linked funds and an investment bond managed by AIB Life.
Barclays assured the investors that ‘the investment was as safe and easy to use as a deposit savings account’. From this statement, the investors were assured that the investment risk was minimal and that access was as easy as placing their money in an instant access savings account, but with a higher rate of return.
However, following the 2007/08 market crash, it became apparent that the investment was not low risk and that access was not guaranteed to be always available at short notice. This created two major problems for the investors. The first being the loss of value and in turn income from the investment, and the second coming from the restricted access to their money thereby missing out on opportunities in Australia in terms of buying property and a new business with which to provide them an income in their new country of residence.
This case required an expert witness CPR 35 report to cover the issues of liability, which, initially, Barclays denied. This led on to some very complicated quantum calculations that not only considered the loss in capital value and income, but also had to take into account the loss of opportunity costs. This required Grahame, working with accountants in Australia who estimated the business losses over time, with these values needing to be converted in to UK Sterling so that they could be presented to the Court.
In total, two CPR Part 35 reports were prepared. One to cover the liability issues and a second to calculate the combined quantum losses.
The outcome of the case was that the Claimants were successful in their claim and Barclays eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
Grahame Goodyer acting as the Expert Witness for the Claimants against Barclays Bank/Investment Management