HSBC and Barclays are facing a $12-billion civil lawsuit involving a now-defunct Jersey trust that has been linked in proposed U.S. legislation to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, The Times reported.
The claim was filed in the federal district court in Colorado by Tanya Dick-Stock and her husband, Darrin Stock, the newspaper said. They accuse Barclays, HSBC, and certain subsidiaries, along with the trust business Zedra, of breach of trust connected to the handling of a Colorado trust that required any successor trustee to be a U.S.-regulated bank or trust company.
The complaint alleges that trustees committed a “fraud on a power” by improperly appointing Jersey-based La Hougue as a successor trustee and transferring assets on behalf of Tanya Dick-Stock’s late father, John Dick. The claimants allege HSBC took on accounts related to La Hougue after the trust moved to Panama, The Times said.
The complaint also claims that La Hougue committed “decades of fraud,” including through fake loans, backdated documents, commingled accounts, and fabricated paper trails, to benefit parties other than the named beneficiary, according to The Times.
La Hougue was named late last year on a list of 72 individuals and organizations associated with proposed legislation that would compel the U.S. Treasury Department to hand over undisclosed records allegedly related to Epstein to Senate investigators, according to the report.
In 2021, The Times investigated La Hougue documents and said Kevin and Ian Maxwell, both brothers of Ghislaine Maxwell, appeared in papers connected to unusual circular debt arrangements, alongside their former company Telemonde and Malcolm Grumbridge, a Maxwell family friend and former solicitor.
The Maxwell brothers and Grumbridge appear in La Hogue papers, and Gumbridge is included in the list of 72 individuals and entities that Senate investigators are seeking information on, according to the report.
Read more at The Times