Woodford compensation and No Win No Fee fees

MeteredOut

MapsterUK said:

Received a further letter from HP confirming that the amounts are payable. My partner who had only a small amount invested has also now received an invoice as it looks like the first round were for the larger invoices and now invoices have been sent to everyone so I imagine there may be more noise about it in the press.

Again, I am not against the charging of a fee if there is a win. But this was not a win. The battle was not even fought. 

What did the signed T&Cs state? I suspect "a win" was money being paid back via any route.

A salutary tale for anyone signing up to a CMC to read the T&Cs carefully.

Yorkshirehammer

Can anyone confirm how much the fee per share is ? I cant get into the link and it doesnt tell you in their email 

brewerdave

I ,too, have received an invoice from Harcus Parker 
. I'm "fortunate" in that most of my payment was for Woodford shares held in an ISA , only a small number in a SIPP ,so no worries about taxation on withdrawals if necessary. 
The amount being claimed by Harcus Parker is a few £100s but ~ 64% of the compensation amounts !! Hardly a reasonable % age for such a case in my view.
I have NO intention of paying unless threatened with Court. 
Has anyone been summonsed yet ? Particularly as there appear to have been some investors in Woodford for much larger amounts than me.

mc50

I got an invoice for about £11.4k in Jan this year which I ignored. I had 374200 acc shares which as far as I can find out paid about 5 p per share back into my pension fund.  Their costs then amount to about 3p per share, so with 40%  income tax on a withdrawl it just about washes face. Is it worth a group of us have a lawyer look into the basis of charge with a no win no fee contract?

mc50

here is what we agreed to:

• No upfront cost or upfront payment will be associated with, or be consequent on, the formal LMA sign-up to the RGL Group action;

• No cost or payment will be required at any point in the claim/litigation process unless and until the case is successful;

• Litigation funding will cover all legal and other costs of the RGL Group’s claimants as they are incurred;

If the claims against HL and/or Link are not successful, the funding will not have to be repaid and After the Event (ATE) insurance arranged by RGL will protect RGL Group claimants against having to pay adverse costs.

was the claim successful ????
 

brewerdave

mc50 said:

I got an invoice for about £11.4k in Jan this year which I ignored. I had 374200 acc shares which as far as I can find out paid about 5 p per share back into my pension fund.  Their costs then amount to about 3p per share, so with 40%  income tax on a withdrawl it just about washes face. Is it worth a group of us have a lawyer look into the basis of charge with a no win no fee contract?

Have you engaged with them at all ? I ask because significant investors like you are most likely to be in the firing line for action ! but it's been ~ 9 months since your charge was raised
 My relatively paltry investment with Woodford cannot be worth pursuing ,I hope !!

MapsterUK

mc50 said:

I got an invoice for about £11.4k in Jan this year which I ignored. I had 374200 acc shares which as far as I can find out paid about 5 p per share back into my pension fund.  Their costs then amount to about 3p per share, so with 40%  income tax on a withdrawl it just about washes face. Is it worth a group of us have a lawyer look into the basis of charge with a no win no fee contract?

I got an invoice for a similar amount and my partner got an invoice for a small amount. I believe larger investors were contacted first (As a courtesy!). We have ignored this and a second similar email came through making no threat but saying that they have dropped any charge on further payouts for the fund which are possible but likely to be a lot smaller.

I think we should start contacting the press and I have made contact with a consumer lawyer in preparation. It is useful for us to work together on this as I don't think they will want bad publicity when there are trying to entice people into the countless number of group litigation opportunities which seem rife at the moment.

MapsterUK

mc50 said:

here is what we agreed to:

• No upfront cost or upfront payment will be associated with, or be consequent on, the formal LMA sign-up to the RGL Group action;

• No cost or payment will be required at any point in the claim/litigation process unless and until the case is successful;

• Litigation funding will cover all legal and other costs of the RGL Group’s claimants as they are incurred;

If the claims against HL and/or Link are not successful, the funding will not have to be repaid and After the Event (ATE) insurance arranged by RGL will protect RGL Group claimants against having to pay adverse costs.

was the claim successful ????
 

I agree with this, I don't believe the claim was successful as they did not even get their day in court. They lobbied us all to reject the offer that was eventually made and now want up to 70% of what we then got paid. I wouldn't think this was a fair.

jimjames

I thought I'd have a check on this to see if I'd had any emails from these people. I didn't find anything in my mailbox but did find this gem in an email in June 2017 from HL. In hindsight they weren't hiding the small companies element but certainly underplaying the significance.

Neil Woodford is one of the most successful and well-known fund managers in the UK, with a career spanning over 30 years. His flagship CF Woodford Equity Income Fund has just reached its third anniversary. In my in-depth report I take a look at how it has fared and explain why we believe it remains an excellent choice for investors seeking income, growth or a combination of the two. In the report I explain how the fund differs from many of its peers, with Neil Woodford using exposure to higher-risk smaller companies to boost its growth potential.

brewerdave

mc50 said:

here is what we agreed to:

• No upfront cost or upfront payment will be associated with, or be consequent on, the formal LMA sign-up to the RGL Group action;

• No cost or payment will be required at any point in the claim/litigation process unless and until the case is successful;

• Litigation funding will cover all legal and other costs of the RGL Group’s claimants as they are incurred;

If the claims against HL and/or Link are not successful, the funding will not have to be repaid and After the Event (ATE) insurance arranged by RGL will protect RGL Group claimants against having to pay adverse costs.

was the claim successful ????
 

Isn't this a different claim ? RGL are pursuing HL themselves not Link. I may be getting confused but the Harcus Parker action was to force a bigger settlement from Link - and achieved nowt on it's own!