What began as a bitter dispute between the former Seigneur of St John and his daughter has evolved into a sprawling legal battle involving offshore trusts, global banks and claims worth billions of dollars.
It emerged that Tanya Dick-Stock and her husband Darrin Stock were suing Barclays and HSBC back in December, alleging they helped her late father and former St John Seigneur John Dick Sr illegally siphon off cash from trusts intended for her.
The pair claimed that they were owed billions in damages.
Last week, the stranger-than-fiction saga took another twist, with it now being reported that the extent of the alleged fraud perpetuated by Mr Dick Sr is even larger than previously anticipated.
According to documents submitted to a Colorado federal court seen by The New York Post, the couple say the banks failed to obey foundational anti-fraud and money-laundering regulations.
READ: Disgraced media tycoon’s sons linked to controversial Jersey-based trust
It is claimed that HSBC and Barclays neglected their duty to ‘Know Your Customer’ by enabling Mr Dick Sr to hide cash through offshore trust business La Hougue.
The couple are now seeking another $3 billion on top of the original $12 billion sought in December, factoring in interest and damages.
Included in the court files are allegations that the “industry-wide money laundering schemes” overseen by Mr Dick Sr relied on global banks being “willing to accept” transactions from “coded accounts”.
READ: Former Seigneur of St John passes away in California
The ongoing family court case stems in part from Ms Dick-Stock’s alleged discovery, in 2012, of hundreds of bank boxes stuffed with more than 350,000 confidential papers from her father’s offshore trust business.
Incredibly, the documents were found squeezed inside the indoor squash court of the 58-acre manor house of St John’s Manor.
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Sign up for freeCourt papers released in March 2021 showed that Mrs Dick-Stock had been excluded from two family trusts, and that the money in them could not be used to continue legal battles against her father.
Later that year, it emerged that the sons of disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell were linked to the controversial Jersey-based trust, La Hougue, which Mr Dick Sr operated from St John’s Manor.
Both Barclays and HSBC have so far declined to comment on the ongoing Colorado case.
