Hargreaves Lansdown hit by lawsuit over Neil Woodford’s fund collapse

Hargreaves Lansdown has been hit with a lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of buyers in Neil Woodford’s fund, the primary time the FTSE 100 funds grocery store has been sued over its promotion of the as soon as star stockpicker.

RGL Administration, a claims administration agency, is searching for a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of kilos in compensation for buyers from Hargreaves Lansdown and fund administrator Hyperlink Fund Options in a lawsuit filed within the Excessive Courtroom.

The lawsuit is the primary to focus on Hargreaves Lansdown, which really helpful Woodford’s funds on its influential “greatest purchase” listing of investments till the £3.7bn car was suspended in 2019.

Each Hargreaves Lansdown and Hyperlink have repeatedly rejected the allegations towards them. The businesses declined to touch upon the lawsuit from RGL.

Two different regulation corporations, Leigh Day and Harcus Parker, thought-about the case towards Hargreaves Lansdown however determined to solely pursue Hyperlink as an easier technique to attempt to get better cash.

“The RGL Group is resolute that each Hargreaves Lansdown and Hyperlink must be held accountable,” mentioned Alexander Weinberg, accomplice at regulation agency Wallace, which has been employed by RGL to deal with the case.

Round 300,000 buyers had their cash trapped in Woodford’s flagship fund when it was frozen in June 2019.

Greater than 130,000 Hargreaves Lansdown purchasers had been invested within the Woodford fund in June 2019, in line with a letter from chief govt Chris Hill to the Treasury Choose Committee on the time.

Hargreaves Lansdown urged Woodford to deal with the rising share of the fund invested in small and personal corporations in 2017, in line with the letter. Nonetheless, the platform maintained its advice till the day the fund collapsed.

Legal professionals for RGL will argue that absent Hargreaves Lansdown’s advice, buyers won’t have purchased the fund, or would have offered out as Woodford started to wrestle. It claims the corporate failed its authorized duties to prospects by not doing sufficient to speak its considerations in regards to the fund.

Claims towards the FTSE 100 group open a possible new technique of recovering cash for Woodford buyers.

The claims towards Hyperlink argue that it failed its authorized obligation to supervise the fund, permitting liquidity issues with Woodford’s excessive allocation to non-public corporations to escalate to the purpose the place it struggled to repay buyers who needed to exit.

Hyperlink Fund Options already faces calls for for greater than £300mn in penalties and compensation from the Monetary Conduct Authority, and its Australian guardian firm has mentioned it is not going to foot the invoice if any profitable claims arising from Woodford are greater than the UK firm will pay. Hyperlink disagrees with the FCA’s evaluation.

Legal professionals count on the courtroom will set a deadline within the first half of subsequent 12 months for the claimant teams to enroll buyers.