Michael Brunskill, Sian Darlington and Kayley Giddings currently represent JC (an accountant) in this very large and complex fraud case.
Operation Hornet is an investigation by Thames Valley Police into the alleged corrupt relationship between employees of the HBOS banking group (as it was then named) and a number of business turnaround consultants. Members of the HBOS Impaired Assets Division are alleged to have referred the division’s customers (all companies) to the consultants, this was a required condition for the customer’s banking facilities to remain in place . The Crown’s case is that the companies were then stripped of assets before being liquidated for the benefit of the defendants.
In addition to the complex nature of the case, it is of vast proportions. Losses relating to the alleged fraud are estimated at £250 million. The Crown has yet to complete disclosure of all its evidence but a combined total of 180,000 pages of documents have been served so far.
Proceedings are currently before Southwark Crown Court and a number of trials are expected to take place in 2016.
