VP group vindicated as Ferrari family fraud claim crashes

31/03/25

G.I. Globinvest Limited and ors v XY ERS UK Limited and ors [2025] EWHC 740 (Comm)

In a 1410-paragraph judgment, following a 7-week trial in the Commercial Court, Mr Justice Jacobs has dismissed a claim that the fund management arm of the VP banking group was party to a fraudulent conspiracy to injure members of a wealthy Italian family and its incorporated family office.

The Claimants were Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the former Chairman of Ferrari; his son Matteo Cordero di Montezemolo; and G.I. Globinvest.  They alleged that two VP bank entities conspired with various parties in the setup and administration of the Luxembourg-based Skew Base Fund (SBF), with the intention of depriving investors of the opportunity to take independent investment advice. After some compartments of the SBF collapsed during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Claimants sought €50m in lost capital together with a 3.2% hypothetical alternative ROI.

VP Luxembourg was the regulated Alternative Investment Fund Manager of the SBF and VP Liechtenstein was its delegated Portfolio Manager.  The SBF was initiated by Daniele Migani, a former CERN physicist, who indirectly owned the SBF’s General Partner. Another Migani-owned company (Twinkle) was engaged as an investment advisor to VP Liechtenstein.

The central plank of the conspiracy claim was that the VP Defendants were instrumental in maintaining a “façade” that the SBF was run by VP without Mr Migani’s involvement, whereas Mr Migani was in fact its initiator, its indirect owner and the owner of the investment advisor.

Amongst a battery of allegations, the Claimants alleged that the VP Defendants knew of or turned a blind eye to fraudulent ‘independence representations’; that VP Luxembourg had breached its regulatory obligations; and that VP Liechtenstein was not the true Portfolio Manager, but had improperly delegated that role to Twinkle and concealed it, along with the payment of fees to Twinkle.

The VP Defendants prevailed on every single allegation made in the proceedings.  The VP Defendants called 7 witnesses of fact, and the Judge accepted the evidence of each of them.  Mr Justice Jacobs found all of the 4 main VP witnesses to be “impressive and reliable.” 

As the trial progressed, the Claimants were forced to abandon their allegations against VP witness after VP witness.  Although the Claimants maintained their case in respect of two individuals, the Judge found them to be honest and not party to any fraud, and held that “as the number of alleged conspirators at VP has declined …  so has any remaining realism of the Claimants’ conspiracy case.”

Ultimately, Mr Justice Jacobs had no hesitation in holding that VP Liechtenstein was the true Portfolio Manager, that neither VP Luxembourg nor VP Liechtenstein knew or suspected that the Claimants or other investors were being misled (and found that investors were not in fact being misled), and that neither VP Luxembourg nor VP Liechtenstein were party to any fraud or any conspiracy to injure the Claimants. 

The claims were dismissed, with the Claimants ordered to pay indemnity costs.

A copy of the judgment is available here.