'Wine investment scam' – Westminster Fine Wines Limited – 12-year ban for Jeff Berrill

 

36-year-old Jeff Berrill (DOB: 24.1.1980), the sole director of fraudulent Westminster Fine Wines Ltd, has been banned for 12 years from acting as a UK director. Berrill ran a wine investment scam selling wine to investors but failing to buy any. 

Berrill was initially disqualified for five years from acting as a director by Blackfriars Crown Court on 16th December 2015. This has now been extended to March 2028. On 6th November 2015 Berrill pleaded guilty at Blackfriars Crown Court to 5 counts of dishonestly making false representation. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for 24 months.  

Founded in October 2011 with a share capital of £10, Westminster Fine Wines Ltd went into liquidation on 27th February 2014 when Nedim Ailyan of Abbott Fielding Ltd based in Sidcup was appointed as liquidator. The estimated deficiency was £232,326 with £231,066 owed to trade and expense customers and £2000 to Barclays Bank. Ailyan found that no wine had been bought. The company did not have an account at any UK bonded warehouse.

    

In his statement of affairs (27.2.2014) Berrill listed the company's assets of £1400 – £400 in office furniture and £1000 in wine. Ailyan's liquidator's report (11.3.2015) noted that Berrill thought that this case of wine 'may have been transferred into his personal account in error. The director has not provided any further details regarding any wine held personally.'  

Berrill took in £335,720 from investors but never bought any wine. £244,443 was paid out of Westminster Fine Wines Bank accounts. This included payments to restaurants, pubs, hotels, supermarkets and to retail outlets of £61,854 and payments to Berrill of £43,562. 

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Press Release from Insolvency Service:
Jeff Berrill has been disqualified from acting as a director for 12 years for taking payment from investors for wine that was never purchased and failing to keep records of the company’s transactions.

On 11 February, following an investigation by the Insolvency Service, Mr Berrill gave a disqualification undertaking to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills not to promote, manage, or be a director of a limited company from 3 March until 2028.


Westminster Fine Wines Limited was incorporated on 7 October 2011, offering wine investment to private investors, with Jeff Berrill as the sole director and shareholder. 


Mr Berrill had worked in the wine investment industry* for a number of years and states that when the company was set up, the wine industry was booming. However, the wine market soon suffered a significant downturn. Confidence in wine investment fell and the market saw drops of 20% to 30% in wine prices, with several companies going out of business. 


In late December 2013, the company received notice that the bank was withdrawing its funding and on 27 February 2014, the company was placed into liquidation. 

The Insolvency Service investigation found that:

• Mr Berrill caused Westminster Fine Wines Limited to trade with a lack of commercial probity.
• Between 3 August 2012 and 31 May 2013, at least 11 investors purchased at least 57 cases of wine from Westminster, for which Westminster received payments into its bank account of at least £194,885.
• The investors were informed by persons representing Westminster that the money would be invested on their behalf in fine wines which would be stored in a bonded warehouse facility.
• The wine paid for by these investors was never purchased by Westminster.
• When Westminster entered into liquidation, no fine wines were available and no others assets were available to enable a distribution to these investors.
• Records provided by Mr Berrill show that Westminster received £335,720 from clients for whom wine was never purchased or delivered to a bonded warehouse. These additional investors have not made claims in the liquidation.
• Mr Berrill also failed to maintain and/or preserve, or in the alternative, failed to deliver up accounting records.
• As a consequence it is not possible to explain and account for the sale, purchase and disposal of wine, or explain and account for the disposal of investor’s monies.
• It also not possible to determine the reason for payments from the bank account of £244,443, which included payments to restaurants, pubs, hotels, supermarkets and to retail outlets of £61,854 and payments to Mr Berrill of £43,562.
• It is not possible to verify if Westminster received the benefit of these payments and why any assets that were purchased with these funds were not available for creditors on liquidation.

At the date of liquidation, Westminster had no assets and liabilities of £233,066.


Commenting on the disqualification, Cheryl Lambert, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said:

Directors have a duty to ensure that they act competently and with commercial probity. Directors who do not comply with this basic obligation can expect to be investigated by the Insolvency Service and enforcement action taken to remove them from the market place.
Mr Berrill misled investors and did not purchase the wine for which they had paid at least £194,885. Investors’ money was spent and records were not maintained to account for how the funds were disposed of, which could have enabled them to recover some of the money.

Mr Berrill’s conduct demonstrates that he is unfit to be a director of a company and taking action against him is a warning to all directors to seriously consider their actions and to comply with their obligations.

* Doubtless for other scam wine investment companies. 

NB: investdrinks has amended the Insolvency Service's Press Release by marking some passage in bold. 

Notes to editors

Westminster Fine Wines Limited (CRO 07801068.) was incorporated on 7 October 2011. Its registered office was 50 Broadway, Westminster SW1H 0RG. It traded from the same premises. Jeff Berrill was the only director at the time of liquidation.


Westminster Fine Wines Limited was placed into liquidation on 27 February 2014.


Jeff Berrill is of 62 Cavendish Drive, Northampton. His date of birth is 24 January 1980.


On 6 November 2015, Jeff Berrill was, upon his own confession, convicted upon indictment of 5 counts of dishonestly making false representation to make gain for self/another or causing loss to others/exposing others to risk. He was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment suspended for 24 months in the Crown Court at Blackfriars.


The Secretary of State accepted an undertaking from Jeff Berrill on 11 February 2016. The disqualification commences on 3 March 2016.


A disqualification order or undertaking has the effect that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot:

• act as a director of a company
• take part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership
• be a receiver of a company’s property

In addition that person cannot act as an insolvency practitioner and there are many other restrictions are placed on disqualified directors by other regulations.

Watch out! Former EFW customers targeted by variety of scams

The former offices of European Fine Wines Ltd in Bromley

Former clients of EFW/European Fine Wines Ltd are being targeted by a variety of scamsters – all dedicated to thinning clients wallets even further. Most overpaid for the wines they bought from EFW. It is very clear that client lists including not just contact information but also details of the wines they purchased have been passed around – sold on etc.

Over-high valuations and Chinese sales   

Some like Lewis Samuels of Samuels & Parker Ltd are making remarkably high offers on portfolios. Samuels, based in Downham and Dubai, tend to claim that he has a Chinese buyer for these wines – unfortunately the Chinese buyer has a tendency to be rather fickle and change their mind. More recently he has also found a UK buyer to pay around £72,000 for a portfolio valued by another, long established broker at £55,000.  

London City Bond – fake employees 

Other scamsters have pretended to be employees of London City Bond claiming to have located wine that they say they can sell for the client. Of course an advance fee is required to facilitate this sale. Needless to say – see the letter from David Hogg from London City Bond below – this is a lie. Like the famous Nigerian 419s this is looks to be advanced fee fraud.     

Dear Customer 

I am writing to you as the former storage provider for European Fine Wines.

As you will be aware European Fine Wines have now been placed into Liquidation and we are currently working with the appointed Liquidator.

However, it has been brought to our attention that some customers have received telephone calls and letters (see below) from unknown individuals, claiming to be from London City Bond (LCB) and offering to buy their wines or in exchange for a fee, secure your stocks from the Liquidator.

These people do not work for LCB and we never cold call any customers offering such services.

Should you receive any such calls, we would urge you not to accept any offer under any circumstances.

If you are able to ascertain any details about the caller, number used etc we would be grateful for this information in order that we can pass this on to the Police.

Please feel free to contact our Customer Services team on 0843 659 3617 or at vtcustomerservices@lcb.co.uk for any further assistance.

Many thanks.

Regards
David Hogg

Sales Director

Text of letter above
12th Feb 2015

Dear Mrs

We write to confirm that we have located fine wine assets under your name which have been within our bonded warehouse. The storage for your assets are now due for renewal and so can you please inform us how you wish to proceed. We can offer you an option to sell your case of wine and we have been approached by an interested buyer who would like to present a formal offer of £7,228.91.

If you are happy to accept this offer of sale, a fee of £722.89 will be due to cover fees for the sale of which we will complete on your behalf.

Should you have any further queries, please contact us on 0207 859 4313.

Kind regards

James Reynolds
Storage Management


Abbott Fielding/Grant Thornton – fake employees
This is a variant of the fake employees at London City Bond. This time the scamsters claim falsely to be employees the liquidators and for a fee can release clients' wines. Again this looks like advanced fee fraud. 

Message from Nedim Ailyan of Abbott Fielding Limited:
    

'Evolution of Conmen

I am writing to you to see whether you could give assistance, as we have noticed over the last week or so a worrying development in the evolution of conmen in relation to commodity fraud and in particularly wine fraud.

As you are aware I am the Liquidator of in excess of a dozen wine frauds, the vast majority have been dealt with by the Police.  We have had disturbing calls from creditors over the last 3 or 4 days, where creditors have been contacted by individuals purporting to be from Abbott Fielding and requesting they pay across a sum of money to release their wine.

I have contacted other insolvency practitioners and established that Grant Thornton have also been the victim where third parties have contacted creditors of companies they are dealing with alleging they are from Grant Thornton and requesting payment of small sums of money to release their goods.

We have contacted the relevant authorities to advise this and are currently collecting the names and phone numbers which will be forwarded on to the Police.

Nedim Ailyan

Abbott Fielding Limited

European Fine Wines Ltd (EFW): warning scammers very active!!

 The former premises of European Fine Wines Ltd in Bromley

– now in liquidation

There are currently a rash of white knight scams linked with European Fine Wines Ltd, which went into liquidation on 25th June 2014, when Nedim Ailyan of Abbott Fielding Limited was appointed as liquidator. 

The scams include letters, using a European Fine Wines Ltd letterhead, sent   to clients of European Fine Wines Ltd as well as phone calls from people claiming to work for Abbott Fielding or to have been appointed by them or in the instance below from someone claiming to be the ex-financial director of European Fine Wines Ltd.  

Comment received for investdrinks yesterday (21.1.2015):

'I've just received a call from European Fine Wines ex financial director??? They are back in business and trying to sell me insurance to protect me from the company brought in as liquidators from only giving me 5p for every £1 invested. I actually own the wine and have it stored, is this true or a scam - help feeling very confused as thought I was one of the lucky ones?'

investdrinks understands that Rothstein Capital & Partners are among the companies contacting clients of European Fine Wines Ltd. I understand that Grant Thornton as well as Abbott Fielding have previously reported the activities of Rothstein Capital & Partners to the Police.  

All these are scams as Nedim Ailyan, the liquidator, explains:        

'In recent weeks, a company has been writing to the creditors on European Fine Wines letterhead alleging that they are the company and trying to obtain money from them.

 

In addition, a third party has been ringing creditors alleging he works for my office and that for a small payment, he can get people's wine.

 

Needless to say, anyone who passes any money to both these parties receives nothing. European Fine Wines Limited is in liquidation and any and all correspondence, that clients receive will be received from Abbott Fielding only.'

Don't fall for these advance fee frauds, they will only increase the losses you suffered through European Fine Wines Ltd.

If you have the slightest doubt contact:  

Abbott Fielding Limited, 142/148 Main Road, Sidcup, Kent DA14 6NZ  

Tel: 020 8302 4344

Fax: 020 8309 9178

www.abbottfielding.co.uk

Encarta Fine Wines Ltd into liquidation: frozen bank facilities blamed

Canary Wharf – getting a reputation for scams  

Yet another wine investment company, Encarta Fine Wines Ltd, has just gone into voluntary liquidation with sums due to creditors estimated at between £3.5 to £3.8 million. The creditors’ meeting was held today at the Marriott Hotel in Bexleyheath, London.

Encarta has around £1.7 million worth of stock held at London City Bond, which is estimated to realise about £1.3 million. The pay out to unsecured creditors is estimated to be in the region of 25p-30p in the pound.

Encarta was set up in July 2009 with 35-year-old Dean Doughty and 39-year-old Matthew Hart as directors.

The liquidator, Nedim Ailyan of Abbott Fielding, says that the directors have blamed the collapse on their bank, HSBC, freezing their banking facilities for four months.

Ailyan said: “Because of concerns about the level of commodity fraud I believe that the Financial Conduct Authority has been asking banks to investigate commodity asset investment companies that might have suspicious transactions. Although I have already seen this happen with companies selling other commodities, this is the first time this is said to have happened to a wine investment company.”

It is thought that Encarta’s banking facilities were frozen earlier this year and were then unfrozen once the four-month investigation was completed. It is not known whether Encarta continued to trade while their banking facilities were frozen .

(More to follow)

 

•

Abbott Fielding are currently handling the liquidation of several wine investment companies including Canary Wharf Vintners Ltd, which went into liquidation on 23^rd July.

Formed in May 2006 the company changed its name from Strategic Land Acquisitions Ltd in September 2010 to Canary Wharf Vintners. The sole director is 55-year-old Enver Deen.

The deficit is thought to be less than £500,000 with only some 20 creditors. The major creditor is an elderly woman, who is owed some £200,000. She is believed to have been caught by a number of other wine investment firms and subjected to repeated hard-sales tactics.

Deen is currently offering wine investments as well as art, diamonds, land and metals through Belgravia Alternative Assets Ltd. He is the sole director.   

 

Encarta Fine Wines Ltd – another bust wine investment company

The website is still up but Encarta is bust

Encarta Fine Wines Ltd is latest wine investment company to be going into voluntary liquidation. It follows in the footsteps of Canary Wharf Vintners Ltd (sole director Enver Deen or a variation on this name) and European Fine Wines Ltd. The creditors' meeting will be on 12th August@the Marriott Hotel in Bexleyheath. The arrangements are being organised by Abbott Fielding Ltd.

The deficit is not known at present nor whether all the investors received their wine.

More to follow.   

En Primeur Ltd: 6 figure estimated deficit turns into £1.7 million!

Château Latour: one of several First Growths 

missing from a client's reserve account with En Primeur Ltd 

   

Unfortunately En Primeur Ltd’s financial situation is much worse than it was initially thought. Before he had had a chance to have a close look at the books Nedim Ailyan had estimated that the deficit would be in 6 figures and probably at the low end of this range. Instead the report presented at the creditors’ meeting on 16th July 2014 at the Marriott Hotel in Bexleyheath painted a very much blacker picture.

Bankrupt En Primeur Ltd has losses of £1.7 million far higher than initially thought. The full extent of the company’s financial problems became clear once the liquidator saw the company’s books.

Nedim Ailyan of Abbott Fielding (Sidcup) was appointed liquidator at the creditors’ meeting held on 16^th July 2014.

Creditors are owed over £1.8 million. Marco Correia, the company’s sole director and major shareholder, estimates En Primeur Ltd’s wine assets at £223,495. However, Edward Symmons, property and asset consultants appointed to realize their worth, value the stock at only £150,609.

Furthermore some of the company’s wine stocks are in France and will not be released until a £51,000 bill has been settled.

(Details: Stock held at London City Bond in En Primeur’s Trading Account cost £80,420. However, Edward Symmons, property and asset consultants appointed to realize their worth, value this stock at £48,500. A further 990 bottles, which were taken out of bond have a claimed retail value of approximately £45,109 – estimated are estimated by Symmons to have a value of around £11,000. Wines held in France: £97,975 but with a valuation of £57,000. The wines lying in France will only be released once outstanding monies of £51,000 have been paid. Thus the realizable net total for the company’s wine stocks appears to be £99,609.

According to Correia En Primeur Ltd’s problems started in 2011 when one of its suppliers was unable to deliver the 2008 en primeurs ordered. The company was forced to find replacements at the height of the Bordeaux boom. Cases that had been sold to customers for £1600 a case now cost up to £15,000.


Although it is true that prices of top Bordeaux as well as some of their associated wines such as Carruades de Lafite did rise sharply over this period only to fall back after 2011, I'm at loss to think of a wine that went from £1600 a case to £15,000 during this period unless it was sold far too cheaply in the first place. 
Losses mounted: between 30^th September 2012 and 16^th July 2014 En Primeur Ltd made a trading loss of £1.35 million.
  
The overall loss may continue to mount as investdrinks is aware that there are discrepancies between what customers thought should in their En Primeur Ltd reserve account at London City Bond and what is physically there now.

One customer has informed investdrinks that he now only has eight cases in his En Primeur Ltd reserve account instead of 20, which should have included some Bordeaux First Growths. At present it is not known what has happened to these wines.  Some of these missing wines had been purchased from other merchants and had been transferred from another bonded warehouse.
 
There are also some 2010 and 2011 en primeurs that have not been delivered. 

Postscript:
There is one clear lesson from this sorry tale. Store your valuable wine in your own account. Do not rely on putting it into a company's customer reserves as there is nothing to stop that company moving your wine without your knowledge. 

 

As European Fine Wines goes into liquidation debts hit £2 million

Premises of European Fine Wines Ltd in Bromley

At the creditors' meeting on 25th June 2014 held in Bexleyheath, South London, Abbott Fielding Ltd were appointed liquidators for European Fine Wines Ltd, a wine investment company based in Bromley and founded in 2005.

Debts originally thought to be between £500,000 to £1 million have now climbed to £2 million. In their nine years of operation EFW turned over £80 million in wine.

Nedim Ailyan, the Insolvency Practitioner at Abbott Fielding Ltd, said: "We were told the debts were less than one million. However, once we were able to look at the books, we saw that the debt was actually £3 million against assets of £1 million - mainly wine.'

According to Ailyan a major factor in the company's collapse was their decision to set up an office in Hong Kong. "They sank £1 million into this gamble. Unlikely companies like Farr Vintners, who have successfully set up branches in Hong Kong, EFW did not have the specialist staff or the contacts necessary to succeed."

Abbott Fielding will be investigating how far the Hong Kong adventure was funded by investors' funds intended to buy wine.

"It is all right to gamble but not with other people's money," added Aiylan.

It is still unclear how much wine was not bought as I am getting reports from investors that some of their wines are missing. 

••

Encarta Fine Wines Ltd: also ceased trading?

 'Encarta Investment Group was founded in 2006..

down to earth, friendly and helpful fine wine investment company'  

Encarta website no longer found

Yet another 'wine investment' company may have ceased trading as the Encarta Fine Wines's website has disappeared.

Update: 7.7.2014 The Encarta website is now back up, although a phone call gets a recorded message.

European Fine Wines Ltd – liquidation + creditors' meeting

European Fine Wine Ltd premises in Bromley

Confirmation that European Fine Wines Ltd is going into liquidation. The creditors' meeting will be held on 25th June 2014 at the Marriott Hotel in Bexleyheath. Apparently the deficit is believed to be less than £1 million. Most investors appear to have received their wine, although in many instances they probably paid too much for their wines. Some investors are having a nasty shock when they discover the true value of the wines they hold. There does, however, appear to be some investors who for the moment do not have their wine.

The principal reason for the failure of European Fine Wines Ltd is being blamed on their failed attempt to open premises in Hong Kong following the success of legitimate and long established merchants like Berry Brothers & Rudd and Corney & Barrow in setting up offices there. investdrinks has been told that EFW Ltd lost some £800,000 in this abortive attempt to establish a presence in Asia-Pacific. 

Having two directors – Scott Assemakis and David Evans – banned for 11 years from being UK company directors for their part in land banking scams cannot have helped the reputation and fortunes of European Fine Wines Ltd.

The move to liquidation is being managed by Nedim Ailyan of Abbott Fielding in Sidcup. Tel: 0208 302 4344, email: info@abbottfielding.co.uk