Select a region
Jersey is in the international spotlight again following a leak of 350,000 pages of documents allegedly found in a squash court at St. John's Manor.
Shared with investigative journalists across the globe by the daughter of former Seigneur, John Dick, the papers apparently relate to the activities of a trust company carrying the manor's traditional name, La Hougue Boëte.
Tanya Dick-Stock, who grew up at the property, is now using those documents to support a claim in a Colorado court that her father extracted millions from trust funds intended to support herself and her family, which he strongly denies.
The heiress also claims that HSBC failed to properly act on her concerns that false information had been provided to the bank by a successor company to La Hougue in respect of a £6.5m loan secured against St. John’s Manor, which she said was owned by a trust set up for her benefit. The iconic property was sold earlier this year.
La Hougue told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) that the allegations were “blatantly false” and that the truth would be established by the present legal proceedings.
Pictured: The documents were allegedly found by Mrs Dick at an old squash court on the grounds of St. John's Manor.
HSBC declined to comment on the specific claims on the basis of “client confidentiality”, but maintained that it “fulfils all regulatory requirements to report suspicions of financial crime and cooperate fully with law enforcement investigations.”
When Express contacted the Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) - the regulator that oversees the conduct of local financial institutions - about the case, it said it was “aware” of the dispute, but added: “In line with the standard approach adopted by regulators, we are not in a position to comment publicly on the detail.”
While legal proceedings are now ongoing in the US, matters relating to the family dispute have been heard several times in Jersey’s Royal Court in recent years, and those judgments are publicly available.
"It is open to the parties to go back to the Royal Court if they consider matters unresolved," the JFSC added.
“It is important to note that our role, as regulator, is not to investigate allegations of fraud, as it is a criminal offence. Our standard practice is to refer relevant allegations of criminal behaviour to the police for investigation.
“We do not operate as an Ombudsman service for clients of licensed businesses. We do, however, take any allegation of breaches of our regulatory requirements very seriously and will investigate fully all credible and substantial allegations. Our conclusions to investigations are published where there is cause to invoke regulatory sanctions."
Pictured: The JFSC said it was "aware" of the dispute, but declined to comment specifically on it.
According to Mrs Dick-Stock, officers from the Jersey’s Financial Crimes Unit did investigate the HSBC claim, but didn’t pursue the matter further. The States of Jersey Police commented: “The Joint Financial Crimes Unit commenced an investigation into the HSBC loan in November 2018 and in June 2020 concluded that there was no realistic prospect of a criminal conviction. No further comment will be made regarding this matter.”
TBIJ, which was among the first to print the allegations, received the documents after Mrs Dick-Stock shared the cache of files she claimed to have discovered in an old squash court as she prepared to celebrate her wedding at her childhood home.
The boxes went on to be shared with the European Investigative Collaborations Group, which includes media organisations across Europe and Canada, including TBIJ in the UK.
Reports have since been printed by international outlets, including Der Spiegel (Germany), Mediapart (France), Nacional (Croatia), The Toronto Star (Canada) and The Daily Beast (USA), among others. A televised feature was run on 'Mise Au Point', a news focus programme on Swiss public broadcaster RTS.
Much of the coverage touched upon material previously heard in Jersey’s Royal Court about La Hougue Boëte and reported by Express in 2018, including an admission from former employee Richard Wigley that he had fabricated documents and made “untrue statements.”
Pictured: Matters relating to the dispute have previously been heard in Jersey's Royal Court.
At the time, the Royal Court was presented with papers from the year 2000, which appeared to outline 11 methods through which La Hougue Boëte was “apparently willing to assist in tax evasion.”
The Court decided it “would not be appropriate” to reach any conclusions about whether Mr Wigley, now Panama-based, had committed any criminal offences “in his absence.”
Recent international coverage of the Dick family feud also makes reference to the so-called ‘Jersey Way’ – a suggestion put forward by the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry that reputation is often put before investigation in the island – and brands Jersey a ‘tax haven.'
The latter label is one Jersey’s Government and the wider finance industry have long fought to shake off, and have argued against even more vigorously following the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers revelations, and the subsequent introduction of economic substance legislation aimed at putting an end to ‘shell’ companies.
Pictured: The Paradise Papers revelations saw Jersey tarred with the 'tax haven' brush.
Commenting on the unwelcome publicity, a spokesperson for Jersey Finance, which is responsible for promoting the island’s largest industry on the international stage, said: “It would not be appropriate for Jersey Finance to comment on an individual case, but we are confident in the robust quality of our regulatory regime in combatting financial crime and in the mechanisms available to the authorities to investigate any wrongdoing.
“Jersey is consistently recognised by global standard-setters when they carry out independent assessments, for the effectiveness of its regulatory regime and for its ability to prosecute financial crime.”
The States of Jersey Police added: “The Joint Financial Crimes Unit commenced an investigation into the HSBC loan in November 2018 and in June 2020 concluded that there was no realistic prospect of a criminal conviction. No further comment will be made regarding this matter.”
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.