Axiom Legal Financing Fund managers asleep at the wheel

KPMG, the firm appointed initially to carry out a review of goings-on at embattled Axiom Legal Financing Fund, are reported to have said that whilst the fund does not appear to be a Ponzi scheme the managers of the suspended £117m fund carried out "little or no due diligence" on the cases in which they invested shareholders' money, and did not follow investment criteria.

Following a period of suspension, the funds directors have now appealed to have the fund wound up because it is unable to meet its financial obligations.  According to IFA online, the court documents disclose that KPMG's investigations "reveal grounds for suspecting there has been mismanagement" of the fund's assets, and that the net asset value of the fund has been overstated.  The size of the shortfall is not clear at this stage.

The loans made by the fund appear to have been made to law firms conducting genuine cases, but are unlikely to be repaid within the time frames required by the fund’s investment criteria.  Loans should only have been made to cases which could be completed within a year, whereas most, if not all, of the cases being funded will take much longer than this to resolve – in some cases up to 3 years – and in at least one case a loan appears to have been made to a firm which was close to insolvency at the time. 

There is also controversy regarding the payment of a “facilitation fee” of 50% of the loan value.

The findings disclosed in the court paper seem to show a situation where there has been a real breakdown in good governance at the fund.  However, it is not yet clear whether some of the stronger allegations of fraud made by OffshoreAlert are well founded – the court papers suggest that further investigation  is required before a conclusion can be drawn on that issue.