Clifton Group of Companies - the Judge says it all!
You only need to read the Judges' findings at the recent Tribunal Court Judgment dated 31st March 2023 UKFTT 00355 (TC). Excerpts: Pg 32 - 221 "We would describe MLT's (Morgan Lloyd Trustees) overall attitude to the details of all the Pension Funding Deals as cavalier....."
Pg 32 - 224 "It may be true that MLT did not intentionally circumvent the unauthorised payment rules, but it did consistently fail to apply any critical analysis to fundamental aspects of the Pension Funding Deals, which in our view amounts to at best a passive approach to the application of the rules in favour of generating fees for themselves and other members of the group."
If you've had any involvement with Clifton Consulting or Morgan Lloyd with a pension scheme, I would strongly suggest reading the Court document. HMRC had already started their investigations and raising assessments in 2011 into SASS schemes administered by Morgan Lloyd. These schemes were sold by Clifton Consulting - also known as Clifton Assets. Both companies knew there was a risk to anyone moving their pensions into these schemes but never once disclosed this to me or others I have spoken to. They sold me my scheme in 2014. When HMRC raised a protective assessment against my scheme in 2016, Morgan Lloyd stated HMRC had only just "become interested" and had "begun to raise assessments' when the evidence shows this is not the case.
Morgan Lloyd presented and confirmed in a telephone call that HMRC’s investigation was an event that had only just happened, and they did not know about HMRC's interest before they sold me the scheme in 2014. I have now found this was clearly not the case. Morgan Lloyd took, and continued to take, funds from my pension scheme to pay the legal fees they said were necessary to fight the assessment. I allege the two companies continued to advise and set up SASS schemes, knowing their clients could be at significant financial risk. I believe they worked to recruit business owners into the scheme, take their fees, and if the business got a Protective Assessment, make it out as though it’s only just happened and Morgan Lloyd was there to appeal and fight the assessment. The clients would fund the legal fees from the pension schemes. So, there was absolutely no financial risk to them. I was mis-sold this pension. I'm in dispute and have reported this to the FCA, Pension Ombudsman and Police Scotland.







