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law firm under fire over role in fidentia scandal
4 June 2007
In a stinging attack on law firm Bowman Gilfillan, the editor of Personal Finance, Bruce Cameron, labels it as one of the companies that continued to do business ‘with one or other of the Fidentia companies when there was already widespread talk in the financial services industry that things were going very much awry at Fidentia’.
He alleges Bowman Gilfillan earned significant fees for representing Fidentia virtually up to the day that it was placed under curatorship.
He adds it also played a role in efforts to delay having Fidentia placed under curatorship and helped to block the attempt by the Financial Services Board (FSB) last year to force the Living Hands Administration Company to apply for registration as a financial services provider. Living Hands Administration Company, a subsidiary of Fidentia, effectively controlled R1.2bn, held in the Living Hands Umbrella Trust, which was needed to pay benefits to widows and orphans.
Cameron says the chairman of Bowman Gilfillan, Jonathan Schlosberg, refused to answer questions put to him by Personal Finance, saying: ‘I have no comment on the contents of your e-mail as it is the policy of our firm not to comment on issues relating to clients and former clients.’
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