Calls for Avocet probe "two years too late"

by OUR BUSINESS REPORTER

The so-called "Avocet fiasco" which has sparked allegations of possible misuse of company funds could have been halted two years ago had major shareholders backed a 'freezing' injunction application to the courts, it has been claimed.

Calls were made at the weekend for a forensic examination of the Avocet Group's accounts following a Sunday Mail article in which investors in the 'disruptive technology' fuel additive businesses told the newspaper they believed their shares were now worthless.

But Ulster farmer James Christie, whose agricultural buildings were partially demolished for a planned Avocet project before company chairman Martin Frost pulled the plug on the scheme says shareholders who were at last asking for action should have supported him back in 2019. 

He had contacted several individuals in a bid to get help for his desperate plight and to discuss possible action going forward.

Mr Christie, after seeking legal advice, approached a number of influential Avocet Infinite PLC stakeholders and suggested they should obtain a so-called Mareva Injunction against the directors which would have frozen assets while the company's affairs were looked into. 

"This form of legal action costs about £10,000 which wouldn’t have been much if enough investors had agreed", Mr Christie told us. "But they decided not to go for the injunction and look what has happened since. They shouldn't be portraying themselves as 'victims' now. A great opportunity was missed"

Mr Christie recalled: "The first individual I phoned simply hung up on me; the second eminent shareholder I spoke to told me I was 'being boring'".

In a series of texts to the struggling farmer, a third stakeholder - a professional gentleman - wrote: "Money spent on a legal battle will be a total and utter waste of money. Finally, almost no Englishman will ever think Ulster has any remote glimmer of an economically successful future, so please put no faith in that, even if you're right about the future prospects. And personally I think you may be right, but I'm sadly in the minority".

Avocet Infinite emails to shareholders in the run-up to the 2019 annual general meeting (AGM) outlined a number of current issues facing the company. The list compiled by Mr Frost included "a purported Mareva Injunction by James Christie to cancel the AGM". 

Mr Frost told the October 2019 meeting of Avocet Infinite investors in York: "Earlier this week I heard that James Christie had raised a Mareva Injunction (MI) to try to freeze Avocet’s assets and my own assets. It appears that in Northern Ireland you can put a motion seeking a MI before a judge without having to put up security. 

"However, to enforce a MI in the UK you have to get the required court to agree to it. Our Northern Ireland lawyers advised that to delay the process if we changed the name of the company (to Omega Infinite PLC) it would give us 24 or 48 hours to combat it. The danger from the MI was it would likely seize my assets and my family’s assets including £800,000 specified for Avocet Infinite’s creditors. The MI would have put that at risk."

Mr Frost also said “By 1pm tomorrow [November 1st 2019] all the money should be in place; should have been transferred to Avocet Infinite to pay the creditors, The MI threatened that which prompted the name change."

Those present at the meeting who had previously undergone 'security checks' were then asked to confirm the name change which Mr Frost had made days earlier.

But within a matter of a few months Omega Infinite was the subject of a Winding Up order and was then placed in compulsory liquidation with creditors claiming many millions of pounds.

Said Mr Christie: "Changing the company's name made no difference. It was the company number which mattered. We could have stopped Avocet's management in their tracks".

Mr Christie, who claims to have lost many hundreds of thousands of pounds as a result of his association with Avocet also asked us to correct a "misleading statement" which was included in a newsletter issued by Mr Frost to shareholders this week.

In it, the Avocet chairman wrote: "“To cut short a long story, this year in the long running defamation action with James Christie against me, my Northern Ireland Q.C. (first) looked at the demerger agreements and readily decided that the ownership of the Omega debt due from Avocet Faculties Limited clearly passed to Avocet Bio Solutions Plc in the 2019 reconstruct.”

But James Christie explained: "My defamation action is against Martin Frost personally, not against any Avocet company. He made very serious allegations against me in another of his communications to investors. But the claims made by Mr Frost are too dangerous to mention here, for safety reasons".