Former ShareSoc Chair Roger Lawson attended the Woodford Webinar and gives his view below.
I watched the ShareSoc webinar last night covering the legal claims over the collapse of the Woodford Equity Income Fund (WEIF). I never personally held any of the Woodford funds but from past experience of other similar big legal claims it was of some interest. With as many as 270,000 investors in WEIF affected it must be one of the most discreditable events in the financial world in recent years.
There are several legal firms who are mounting cases to try and gain some redress for the investors but ShareSoc is backing Leigh Day who presented at the seminar. They are focussed on a claim against Link Fund Solutions, the Authorised Corporate Director (ACD) for the fund and which is part of a large financial group (Link). Leigh Day’s investigations lead it to believe that Link allowed WEIF to hold excessive levels of illiquid or difficult-to-sell investments, and that this caused investors significant loss. In doing so, they consider Link breached the rules of the FCA Handbook and failed to properly carry out the management function of the Woodford Equity Income Fund. They have already issued a letter before action and received a rebuttal response from Link so have now filed a case in the High Court, i.e. the case is progressing – see https://woodfordpayback.co.uk/ for more details and how to join the claim.
A representative of Leigh Day presented the facts and the basis for their claim against Link, but as usual when lawyers present cases, this might not have been exactly clear for the average person. Lawyers seem to want to display their intelligence and knowledge in such presentations which might impress corporate clients but is inappropriate for the general public. Those who invested in the Woodford fund might not have been the most financially sophisticated individuals with many of them relying on recommendations from brokers such as Hargreaves Lansdown (HL).
It seems that Leigh Day cannot identify a good case against Neil Woodford himself, against his management company or against HL. This is unfortunate. Link and the FCA might have fallen down on the job of regulating WEIF and monitoring what Neil Woodford was doing but in essence it was his actions that eventually brought about the collapse. Not only did he invest in companies that were inappropriate for an “equity income” fund but many of them were high risk. Liquidity evaporated when fund performance was poor and negative publicity hit the fund at which point everyone wanted out.
The Leigh Day claim is certainly worth supporting in my view but they have only managed to sign up about 11,000 claimants so far. Why is that? No doubt the first problem is that they do not have access to a register of investors. Both Link and HL have rebutted such requests which is morally indefensible. The FCA should surely step in to ensure that happens if the required information cannot be obtained using the normal disclosure responsibility in legal cases.
Indeed the FCA could take much tougher action by enforcing compensation if they had a mind to do so, but as usual they are proving toothless.
One point I was not aware of before that came out in the meeting was that Grant Thornton were the auditors of the WEIF fund and should surely have queried the low liquidity. Another black mark against that firm.
Apart from the problem for Leigh Day getting through to investors there are a number of other difficulties in obtaining supporters for such legal actions. These are: 1) Investors are often elderly and suffer from sloth – repeated reminders are necessary to get them on board; 2) Investors are keen to forget their own mistakes in investing in the fund; 3) The time to likely obtain a judgement which is several years puts people off; 4) The legal case appears complex and the contracts between investors and the lawyers can be complicated – investors might also doubt that they are not facing risks of costs.
The way the case is communicated to investors needs to be handled very carefully to ensure investors understand what is being done and why they do not face risks from the legal action.
Another issue is that ShareSoc and Leigh Day have pointed out that another approach might be to complain to the Financial Ombudsman. From my experience of that organisation, it would be a long and tedious process with little certainty of satisfaction. I would personally prefer to rely on an aggressive law firm to obtain some redress.
Leigh Day certainly seem to have acted competently so far in pursuing their legal action and have moved relatively quickly. I would also encourage you to write to your Member of Parliament to request that the Government ensures that the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) takes much stronger action over these events.
Roger Lawson
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London
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