Mr K approached Angelus Law in October 2018 concerned over the potential losses he had suffered after transferring his private Aviva pensions into a Self-Invested Personal Pension (‘SIPP’) in late 2011. A therapist by trade, Mr K had been advised and persuaded by an Independent Financial Advisor (‘IFA’) authorised by the then Financial Services Authority that his pensions, then underperforming in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, would see better growth and provide a more substantial retirement income for him if transferred in to a SIPP.

As part of this transaction, the IFA also advised Mr K to invest around on third of the pension funds into a ‘Green Energy’ investment initiative which involved the purchase of Melina trees in Costa Rica advising that investment returns as high as 15% would be achieved. What the IFA did not advise Mr K was that the investment was speculative, high-risk and highly illiquid meaning his money was locked in and he could not sell on the investment to anybody else.

Problems came about fairly quickly with the investment and the companies behind it all fell into liquidation before the Serious Fraud Office ultimately began investigating those responsible in 2017. By this time, however, the client’s funds and those of many other investors were gone.

Thankfully, Angelus Law was recently able to recover £26,000.00 for Mr K following our investigations of the firms involved and a successful claim.

Angelus Law specialises in recovering these lost pension funds for clients and use all available avenues to do so including the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and, if necessary, pursuing those firms responsible through the Courts.