How Nedbank Lied, And Lied, And Lied

Widow, 83, faces off bank in Jersey court.

- Martin Welz

Ian Breakspear, a Durban-based futures trader, was a longstanding Nedbank client. He was a beneficiary of the JAM Brakspear Trust (JAMBOT), set up by his late father in the Isle of Man to support his widow and their children, and the de facto settlor of the Westley Trust, registered in Jersey.  (We say de facto settlor, because Nedbank and its attorneys have – under oath, on different occasions – claimed various different candidates for the role.)

Ian Brakspear was also the sole director of West Dunes Properties 5, a South African company ultimately owned by a Panama-registered company, Westley Holdings, which in turn was supposedly controlled by his Jersey trustees who operated (so he was led to believe) on his instructions.

He was, ultimately, Nedbank’s client who instructed Nedbank to proceed in setting up the elaborate “bespoke” offshore structure that their “expert” staff recommended – and paid them substantial fees for the service.

Its purpose was to finance the purchase by West Dunes of a Franschhoek fruit and wine farm that happened to be adjacent to L’Ormarins, the famous Rupert Rothschild estate, and which was to be developed as an upmarket country hotel and residential estate and then to be re-sold at a handsome profit.

As explained in an earlier Noseweek story, it all went horribly wrong – the disaster, in no small measure, caused by the careless incompetence of Nedbank’s Jersey staff (who made profuse apologies) and the farm was ultimately sold by auction in 2007 for R19 million.

Shortly thereafter, Nedbank, in the name of its Jersey trustee company and represented by ENS, “Africa’s largest law firm”, brought a surprise high court application two days before Christmas for the liquidation of West Dunes, alleging the company was insolvent and owed the Jersey trust R7m in repayment of a loan.