A pensions investment company was swindled out of £160,000 because it failed to ask its new financial adviser for a written business agreement, a jury at Reading Crown Court has heard.
Swindon-based Genesis Investment Management only made a verbal agreement with Colin Stanton, who ran Grosvenor Employee Benefits, that he would be paid a fee - not commission - because he had been recommended by Derek James, a friend of the company chairman.
Stanton was then trusted with the Knightsbridge company's £320,000 pounds pension premium.
It was only when Mr James allegedly discovered he had been swindled by Stanton, and warned Genesis bosses, that they discovered they too had been fleeced. Colin Stanton, 58, of Dropmore Road, Burnham, Bucks, denies four charges of evading liability and four charges of fraudulently trading between March 1995 and November 2000. The trial continues.
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