Plantation A Legal Thriller

by J M S Macfarlane

  Chapter 109

  As soon as the tape recorder was switched off, Ashby went outside with Stefanides and spoke to the Special Branch officers.

  “You heard what he said in there. He and his friends defrauded us of twenty million pounds. Because of that, my company was placed in liquidation. We need two arrest warrants urgently – for Vratsis Elefthriou, the director of Hellas Global Shipping and Spiro Thanakis, their London agent.”

  “These things take time,” said one of the detectives. “You must leave it with us and wait.”

  Stefanides turned to them and shot off in quick fire Greek.

  “We can’t wait. Don’t you understand ? This is a serious incident involving Greek nationals which could damage our shipping industry. He,” indicating Ashby, “is a London insurer. If we don’t treat this seriously, no-one is going to insure Greek ships. If that happens, our largest industry will collapse. Get moving and issue the warrants now or I will ring the Minister myself.”

  Both of the policemen knew Stefanides and his links with internal security. The senior officer looked at Ashby in annoyance and said “Alright, alright, we’ll get the papers done today, Mr Stefanides.”

  When the warrants were issued, they were faxed to the Metropolitan Police at New Scotland Yard in London. The overseas warrants section handled the arrest of foreign criminals. Stefanides had given the police all of the details about the claim in the Admiralty Court and that Ridgeford Anthony and City First Brokers were representing Hellas Global.

  Later that afternoon, Frances Keen had a call from the Yard. Why did they want to speak to her, she asked. She did commercial, not criminal work. They told her it was about two arrest warrants. Could she give them the most recent addresses for her clients, Elefthriou and his London agent, Thanakis ?

  This information was confidential to her firm so she transferred the call to John Millward. After learning about the arrest warrants, he realised that the Stratos case was now a fiasco. Untold damage had been wrought on Plantation which was in liquidation. There could be ‘consequences’ involving the Law Society. There was also the embarrassment of having aided criminals to defraud one of the London market’s most respected companies. Ridgeford Anthony might be sued out of existence by Ashby. Millward and his partners might have to pay a large amount in compensation for the losses suffered by Plantation. There would be collateral damage for Monty Ransome and Richard Garrick. They would all be tarred with the accursed Hellas Global case. None of them would handle a shipping case again.

  In retribution, Millward gave the police all the details he had about the likely whereabouts of the Greeks. As soon as he got off the phone, he went straight into Frances Keen’s office. They would need to go over their role in the affair and notify their own insurers of a potential claim – against them. In the meantime, he would pass on the fateful news. The first call he made was to Meredith.

  “I’m afraid I have some news to impart to you which....”

  “About the warrants ?” asked Meredith. “You needn’t worry, I know all about it. Our immediate concern is with the liquidation. We must have that overturned as soon as possible. Naturally, you’ll agree to do nothing further, aside from telling the court that you no longer represent Hellas Global.”

  “Yes, yes.....of course. We do sincerely regret all of the injury caused to your client. If we’d suspected in any way that....”

  “Save your apologies. I’m sure Robert Ashby wouldn’t be interested. When he’s back in London, we’ll be reviewing the entire case as I’m sure you would expect us to do. There is also the question of legal costs to be sorted out.”

  This implied that Ridgeford’s partners, Millward, Keen, Grant, Wellbourne, Ransome and Garrick could all be dragged into the inevitable fraud investigation and that a claim for compensation might be made against one or more of them by Plantation. Meredith had no particular desire to do that ; he knew their positions could easily have been reversed ; next time, it could be him doing the apologising in some other case he was handling ; but it was for Ashby to decide how far he wanted to take it. The community of marine lawyers was a small one where everyone knew everyone else. It didn’t do to be like Vincent Wheeler.

  Meredith then rang Riordan and said “They know about the warrants. I’m going to speak to George Waring. If, as I suspect, he’ll prove difficult, then we’ll have to move quickly in the Companies Court to overtake him.”

  “Why don’t we see him together ?” suggested Riordan. “It might smooth the way considerably.”

  It seemed like a good idea. They both knew that Waring wouldn’t give up without a fight. After tracking him down at Plantation and dragging him out of a meeting, the mention of fraud, police investigation and international warrants was enough to persuade him to see them at Riordan’s chambers in Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn.

  Waring later arrived with a management consultant from a large American firm. He looked ready for battle : as an accountant, he had a healthy disrespect for lawyers and viewed them as time-wasters.

  Meredith handed him a summons to attend the Companies Court the next day.

  “What’s this ?”

  “You may not have heard but the ‘debt’ which propelled Plantation into liquidation, wasn’t a debt at all – it was a criminal fraud – and we have all the proof we need to give to the court. Therefore, Plantation should never have been de-registered because it didn’t owe any money in the first place – it always had at least twenty million pounds in cash sitting in its bank account. The board of directors had no authority to liquidate the company or to appoint you. We will be telling all of this to a judge in the Companies Court tomorrow and applying on behalf of the majority shareholder to have the company re-listed on the Companies Register.”

  Waring had expected this and decided to bluff it out.

  “ ‘The majority shareholder’ – that would be Robert Ashby. But where is he ? No-one has seen or heard of him for weeks.”

  “He’ll be at the hearing tomorrow.”

  “Well, even if he is, he’s too late. What’s done, is done. You can’t just turn back the clock. Things have gone too far for that now.”

  “It isn’t too late,” said Riordan. “Your appointment wasn’t authorised by the full board of directors. It wasn’t a properly constituted board. They had no power to do what they did. The directors who appointed you ignored the company’s Articles of Association and the earlier board resolutions. The Articles are the company’s rulebook for conducting business. You should have made the necessary enquiries yourself about this before accepting the appointment. You failed to do that....”

  “There was no need for enquiries.....”

  “Let me finish – you should have consulted all of the shareholders, including Robert Ashby before taking any action. You ignored them. And let me say this – the essential point is that Plantation could always pay its debts. The shareholders always wanted it to continue doing business and the liquidation should never have happened. Now, you can either agree to withdraw or you can be unreasonable in front of the judge tomorrow morning. And I can tell you with absolute confidence, you won’t succeed.”

  “Do you know how many people I’ve got, working their way through Plantation’s books at the moment ? Sixty. And all of them have to be paid. Am I to tell them all ‘Go away, we don’t need you any more.’ ?”

  “You’re the liquidator. You took on the responsibility of employing them. You know and I know that insolvency isn’t a risk-free exercise – it's a minefield of obligations owed to a variety of people. I can’t advise you on that – you should get advice from your own lawyers about it. But what I can say is that it will be futile to oppose us. You will only increase your own expense if you refuse to co-operate.”

  The consultant sitting beside Waring nudged him and said “Perhaps you could allow us a couple of hours to discuss it and we’ll ring you at two o’clock.”