Over the last few weeks we have seen renewed activity by the man leading the Manston DCO, Anthony Freudmann. I last wrote about him in this
blog.
However this reinvention seems to have taken a strange turn with an American lawyer getting involved.
Apologies for the redacting however National Planning decided it was necessary. The letter from the lawyer was as follows
And the response from the recipient as follows
What follows is the potted history written to explain the striking off and the full transcript of the case is on my original blog. which is found
here
Why is this important? It seems the investors who may potentially put their money into the Manston DCO may be put off by "adverse" stories found on the internet.
He does seem to have a difficult time retaining Ltd Companies as the following list shows
Quoted from submission TR020002-003586-Five10Twelve - Comments on Responses to ExA WQs - Appendices on Funding and Resources
"
1. Events ‘alluded to’ and relevance to this application
Regardless of the Applicant’s own concerns as to the relevance, or otherwise, of Tony
Freudmann’s (“TF”) chequered past, it is surely for the ExA to decide whether or not the
“events alluded to” concerning TF’s history as having been struck off from the solicitor’s roll for
27 counts of misappropriation of client’s funds in 1993 are indeed “relevant to this
application ”
.
1.1. With respect to the ExA, we will herewith present statements, fully backed by evidence, to
support our contention that a determining factor in whether or not the events of 25 years
ago are still relevant is the continued history of TF’s financial and organisational
mismanagement and possible involvement in financial impropriety since those events.
1.2. Contrary to the Applicant’s dismissive remarks in response to the ExAs’ question at F.1.1,
TF’s career history indicates disturbing patterns of behaviour with very specific
similarities and absolute relevance to the issues at hand. As such, it is no surprise
whatsoever that the Applicant might wish to portray “the events alluded to” in 1993 as an
isolated and historical aberration before swiftly moving on.
1.3. In the intervening 25 years since being struck off the solicitors’ roll for misappropriation of
client funds, TF has been a serving director of no less than 26 dissolved companies, primarily in the travel and/or aviation industries, many as founder and principle shareholder.
1.4. These include businesses dissolved in 1992/93, 1994, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2016 and as recently as 2017, when his previous failed airport ventures, Annax Aviation Limited and Annax Aviation Airports Limited were both voluntarily dissolved, less than 12 months after a prior compulsory strike-off action had been discontinued for both companies.
1.5. Prior to TF’s own failed travel, aviation and airport businesses, TF was Vice President at
Wiggins Group PLC for 11 years from 1994 until “he was “let go” by Wiggins in February 2005”.
1.6. A supplementary memorandum submitted by the CAA for a House of Commons (“HofC”) Transport hearing regarding Wiggins financial irregularities, mismanagement and failure of its subsidiary business, EUjet, during TF’s tenure reveals that in March 2001, Wiggins Group PLC “ received censure from the Financial Reporting Review Panel and the Financial Services Authority for overestimating its results between 1995/2000 , which on their restatement resulted in significant losses” .
1.7. Wiggins Group PLC subsequently changed its name to Planestation Group in 2004/5,
following a suspension of shares trading, asset write-down, and corporate restructure to repay mezzanine debts and attempt to turn the business around and address pre-tax losses of £12.8m, (down from losses of £27.5m in the previous year), and Group operating losses of £4.2m, (down from losses of £19.4m the previous year).
1.8. During his tenure as Managing Director of Wiggins PLC and latterly as Senior Vice President of Planestation PLC , TF held directorships of associated businesses, Kent International Business Park Ltd, Kent International Airport (Holdings) Ltd, Kent International Travel Ltd and London Manston Airport PLC, prior to these businesses being dissolved in 2005/7 .
1.9. Whilst at Planestation/Wiggins, in December 2003, TF was at the centre of a legal battle with the County of Funen, Denmark, after refusing to pay contracted lease payments at Odense Airport for more than 2 years, amounting to DKK 16 million, (c. £1.84 million). Planestation/Wiggins lost the case and was ordered to pay, with costs also awarded. Local contemporary news reports in Odense quoted TF as saying:
“we can easily pay the arbitration. But by principle and for the sake of our many shareholders, we will be first allowed to read the 50-page decision … but there must be no doubt that we should pay”
1.10. By January 2004, and with the Funen taxpayer owed DKK 18 million, (£2.08 million), and the City Council facing a DKK 6 million deficit, (£0.7 million) as a direct result , a crisis meeting was called by the municipal Odense Airport representative committee to petition for bankruptcy in order to force payment from the UK parent, Planestation/Wiggins. As for TF, doubts had apparently surfaced after all. Local contemporary media reported under its headline “The hunt for Wiggins entered ” that: “Tony Freudmann, Managing Director of Wiggins Group, did not comment on the bankruptcy petition”
1.11. Nine months later in September 2004 - and with Planestation/Wiggins having since pulled
out of Odense entirely - the bill was still unpaid, leaving the Danish taxpayer with a debt now up to DKK 23.7 million, (£2.73 million), plus NOK 900,000 (£79,000) in unpaid VAT , whilst Planestation/Wiggins remarkably - and “according to the rules” - claimed DKK 3 million, (£345,791) as a VAT refund.
1.12. Less than 12 months later, TF’s tenure as Vice President of Planestation continued with the collapse of EUjet in July 200513, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Planestation PLC , operating from the former Manston Airport .
1.12.1. The collapse of EUjet led to questions raised in the House of Commons, (“HofC”), as detailed in the CAA briefing paper of November 200514, which discussed in some detail the litany of errors leading to the collapse, including: “insufficient funds to support the commencement of scheduled operations in the summer of 2004 as originally intended”, a lack of clarity over a £30m cash injection and “what proportion of this additional funding was required to support EUjet”, passenger numbers that were “lower than expected” and a botched plan to sell “75% of the business park adjacent to Manston Airport” which “broke down and led to an eventual cash crisis ”.
1.13. The CAA briefing paper for HofC into the EUjet failure during TF’s previous Manston
Airport tenure as Senior Vice President of EUJet’s parent company, Planestation PLC, also raises concerns as regards irregular and misleading financial reporting of Planestation PLC , in similar circumstances to those which brought censure from the FSA for its previous incarnation as Wiggins PLC, and misleading information provided to the CAA . This is detailed in the briefing paper in the CAA section as follows: “Press reports and the CAA’s own industry sources suggested that EUjet and its parent Planestation were encountering financial difficulties earlier this year. However the
Regulatory Announcements that Planestation had issued to the City indicated that these problems were being comprehensively addressed. The CAA requires regular financial information to be provided by UK licensed airlines for monitoring purposes, but does not receive, nor is able to require, information from non-UK airlines such as EUjet.
The CAA was therefore unaware of the actual financial position of that carrier and, in any case, had no legal powers to act against it .”
1.14. It appears from these sections of the CAA briefing paper for HofC that Planestation PLC
and EUjet had exploited a loophole in the situs of the business and CAA registration.
1.15. As a result, it further appears from this briefing that consumers were again left out of pocket and without a means to claim compensation or recompense from either Planestation PLC or EUjet and a reported “ 5,400 passengers were stranded abroad ”.
1.16. Whilst these reports further support the relevance of the Planestation/EUjet collapse to this case and TF’s pattern of behaviour, contemporary media reports also show direct relevance with regards to the viability (or otherwise) of the current proposed development at Manston :
“Mr McGoldrick, EUjet chief executive, said in a statement that marketing a new airline operation from Manston, which had no recent history of passenger operations, had been “difficult ””; and “passenger targets had not been hit … the Kent operations had underperformed” ;
and “the group had also failed to develop its cargo business at Manston ”.
1.17. Having been “let go” by Planestation on or around the time of its collapse in 2005, TF spent the next 7 years starting, acquiring and dissolving no less than 13 different travel companies.
1.18. Whilst full details are not available for every single failed TF enterprise, some of those reports that are available from failed travel businesses, include Unpackaged Holidays (“UH”) and Travel Club of Upminster (“TCU”), which were investigated by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) after going into administration in 2010
1.19. Much like the Applicant’s current corporate structure, Unpackaged Holidays was anything but “unpackaged”, nestling within a convoluted structure of parents and subsidiaries for purposes unknown, including - as far as we can tell - UH, TCU, Seligo Travel Ltd23, Alpha Prospects24 and Austria Travel Limited.
1.20. The UH and TCU collapse provides evidence of a disregard for the impact on other individuals and businesses as a result of TF’s failures which is not dissimilar to the disdain show to others in the “events alluded to” of 1992/3.
1.21. These impacts include reports that TF’s collapsed businesses “had failed to pay at least 20 hotels and apartments ” , were “unable to continue trading as a result of an inability to meet guaranteed payments” 27 and that customers with future bookings were left with no guarantees of recovering their funds since “the company was not a member of ABTA and did not hold an ATOL”.
1.22. Current CAA advice regarding ATOL29 states that “U K and European law requires travel businesses to financially protect their packages holidays in the countries in which they are established. Businesses based in the UK provide their protection under the ATOL scheme”.
1.23. TF’s current public-facing biography on his own website is somewhat vague and misleading with regards to the period after the collapse of his numerous nested travel businesses in 2010 until his involvement with the Applicant sometime around 2014, talking only of pursuing ‘ his own venture” and delivering “high level consultancy services in relation to aviation and tourism development in both the public and private sectors throughout the UK, Germany and the U.S.”
1.24. Whilst some online biogs might take a similar vague and broad approach in an effort to appear casual and approachable, it is not unreasonable to assume that in this instance the lack of specificity is an effort to conceal, making it as difficult as possible for the reader to check any facts that might lead to the next round of broken promises, failed businesses and other individuals, companies and - as in Odense - entire towns left picking up the tab .
1.25. Certainly, the names of Integral, a.k.a Integeral, and Lahr Airport, a.k.a. Black Forest Airport Lahr, (“BFAL”), seem strange omissions, given their close similarities and relevance to the current Manston proposals. Although perhaps herein lies the problem and the reason for their omission.
1.26. In June 2012, local German news sites reported that the troubled Lahr airport had been taken over by Integral and relaunched as Black Forest Airport Lahr31, (“BAFL”).
Contemporary local reports at the time of the takeover announced:
“the core idea is the founding of a new airline dedicated solely to the cargo business ; and
“the flying fate of the Black Forest Airport (BFAL) is in the future firmly linked with the name Tony Freudmann”
1.27. In further startling similarities to the current Manston DCO proposal , lurking behind these familiar promises of a bright new dawn,” millions in investment and new jobs” at the former regional military airfield, the same contemporary local report somewhat prophetically continued:
“ Freudmann also remains vague when it comes to investments”
1.28. Less than 8 months later and the local news site was reporting on BFAL’s bankruptcy :
“for months, the airport has seen not a tired cent of its parent company ”; and “the employees have been working for three months without pay” ; and “many of the 25 employees have already filed labour tribunal litigation” ; and “since it is clear that BFAL cannot pay its employees, Müller, (Lahr’s Mayor), no longer relies on the promises from London ” ( i.e. TF / Integral)
1.29. 20 years after “the events alluded to” , the patterns are clear, although those 27 counts of
misappropriation of client’s funds arguably look tame in comparison to the 5,400 people
left stranded by EUjet and the misery inflicted on entire towns at Odense and Lahr .
1.30. As TF embarks on his latest “venture” at Manston, perhaps the most chilling words for the
thousands of concerned locals who have voiced their opposition to the proposed development are those of Lahr’s Mayor, Wolfgang G. Müller as he tried to find a way to hold TF accountable after he had walked away from the BFAL disaster:
“40 minutes ago he talked to Tony Freudmann , Müller reports.
‘What did he say?’, one of the journalists present wants to know.
‘Nothing new’ replies the mayor.”
