Reform’s treasurer Nick Candy today vowed to pursue a fraudster and get him ‘put behind bars’ after being duped into investing millions in a tech start-up claimed to be the 'next Facebook'.
Property tycoon Mr Candy called for a criminal investigation into conman Robert Bonnier – and declared he would bring a prosecution privately if the authorities failed to act.
It came after a High Court judge today firmly sided with Mr Candy and his firm Candy Ventures Sarl (CVS) in a long-running legal battle with Bonnier and his tech firm Aaqua.
Bonnier ‘lied repeatedly and determinedly’, the High Court previously found, by deceiving Mr Candy’s firm into investing £6.5million in Aaqua.
The ‘Aaqua App’ was billed as the ‘next Facebook’ but in reality it was little more than a ‘very basic idea’ and ‘did not exist’.
Bonnier falsely claimed to Mr Candy’s firm that global giants Apple and Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) were on the brink of backing Aaqua to the tune of $1billion. But this was untrue - there was ‘no trace’ of any dealings with Apple - and Bonnier knew it, the court found last year.
Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy's firm was awarded £4.6million - but fraudster Robert Bonnier went bankrupt. Now Mr Candy has vowed to launch a criminal prosecution to get him jailed
Conman Robert Bonnier told Mr Candy's company his new app would be 'the next Facebook' but in reality it didn't exist. The High Court ruled Bonnier lied
In November, the High Court ruled that Mr Candy’s firm had been conned. Mr Justice Bright said Bonnier had made false representations to secure investment in Aaqua. He awarded Mr Candy’s company £4.6million in damages, plus interest.
But Bonnier, 55, a Dutch businessman, has yet to pay a penny. He was declared bankrupt at a specialist insolvency court in December.
And since then, he has responded to the damning court ruling by counter-suing Mr Candy and his firm, alleging that a freezing order briefly secured by the businessman had cost him millions.
Today, Mr Justice Butcher threw out this claim, saying Bonnier and his companies had repeatedly and seriously breached court orders.
Mr Candy, 53, is now throwing down the gauntlet to Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson, who is the head of the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Reform treasurer and businessman said: ‘I’ve been ripped off by Bonnier, I’m not ashamed to say it. He’s a fraudster and I am not going to let him get away with it. If I did what he did, I would be locked up. And that’s what needs to happen to him.
‘If the authorities don’t go after him, then I am going to ask the DPP to allow me to bring a private criminal prosecution. I’m going to make sure he is put behind bars.’
While most prosecutions are brought by the Crown Prosecution Service, individuals and companies can bring private criminal prosecutions under the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985.
A spokesman for CVS, which is a portfolio of companies and is 90 per cent owned by Mr Candy, said: ‘Robert Bonnier is a proven conman and fraudster, which has been found as a matter of fact by the High Court.
'Mr Candy will now pursue all available legal remedies, including pursuing criminal proceedings in all appropriate jurisdictions, and will continue to pursue Mr Bonnier until full accountability is achieved and funds are recovered. There must be criminal consequences for fraudulent conduct of this nature.’
Bonnier is best known as a casualty of the dotcom era. A former UBS banker, he made a name for himself as the chief executive of Scoot, an online directory valued at more than £2.5billion during the dotcom boom of the late 1990s. His stake in the business was worth about £130 million before his star, and that of the business, fell early in the new millennium.
Bonnier was fined £290,000 by the City regulator in 2004 for misleading the stock market over his interest in Regus, the office services group. He accepted the penalty to 'seek resolution of this matter' and pointed out that regulators had not made any finding of whether he had intended to mislead the market.
In the present case, at a hearing earlier this month, barrister Hermione Williams, for Bonnier and his companies, asked the court for ‘one final chance’, saying court orders had not been complied with due to a ‘lack of funds’.
In written submissions in the case last year, Bonnier - who represented himself - admitted 'selling his aspirations for Aaqua very enthusiastically, and occasionally perhaps going too far in those efforts'.
Bonnier's representatives have been asked for comment.