![]() “The basic elements are a lack of transparency and no reportability.” “The similarities are really striking,” Casey said. Anonymous trusts that are trustees of other trusts based in different tax havens shuffle money and assets around like cards, using them as security for loans.įrank Casey, the financial analyst who blew the whistle on the Bernie Madoff scandal, drew comparisons between the conditions under which the disgraced financier was able to operate his ponzi scheme and the way the system functions in tax havens around the world. Lurking in the shadows, out of sight of regulators and law enforcement, the offshore trust system appears ripe for manipulation, with beneficiaries often unaware of how their assets are being used. Some view the row as a wake-up call for the island. Indeed, while there is now almost nothing upon which Dick and his daughter do agree, both believe that a massive fraud has been perpetrated in Jersey, the scale of which has yet to be truly appreciated. ![]() But the father-daughter battle which, until now, has gone largely unreported, affords a rare glimpse of how the secretive offshore trust system, set up to protect assets from the taxman, can be exploited for fraudulent purposes. This may seem just a story about a wealthy family’s spectacular implosion in a British Crown Dependency that prizes its independence from the mainland: think Bergerac meets Succession. Lawyers for Dick-Stock deny allegations that she is untrustworthy and insist she is entitled to bring a separate personal claim against her father.Ī spokesman for Dick-Stock said the case was due to be heard on 6 July. The entire Dick family, not just Tanya, has been the victim of an audacious fraud, they say. They point out that none of the trusts’ other beneficiaries, including her own brother, John Dick II, share her views. He regards her and her husband as “wholly unreliable” and untrustworthy, citing, among other things, both criticism she received in a Jersey court and the number of court proceedings in which the couple are involved in the US.ĭick’s lawyers also say his daughter does not have the authority to bring the case against her father as the company bringing the action is in receivership, and therefore litigation should be controlled by the receiver. She is also heavily critical of the way the Jersey authorities and its financial services industry have investigated her claims.ĭick vigorously disputes his daughter’s allegations. Dick-Stock alleges that her father, abetted by others, has defrauded family trusts – offshore vehicles used to protect assets from the taxman – of which she is a beneficiary, of tens of millions of pounds. Photograph: Getty Images Father v daughter: the claims and counter-claimsįew things about the feud are clear.
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