Food Water and Energy SA (FWE) & Powerscourt Services Limited manage an investment in a piece of Argentinian cultivated land called SCS Farmland.
Investors were given the chance to own a piece of managed farmland in a province of Argentina called Santiago del Estero and they would receive a fixed level of return over a 5 to 10 year period. The returns were promised to be anywhere between 66 percent and 160 percent.
There was the option to sell back the farmland at any time during a 5 to 10 year period.
Investment amounts started off from £12,000 and they were eligible to be included in tax exempt self-invested personal pension (SIPP) plans. Unfortunately though, investments in SCS Farmland were not regulated which left investors without protection from either the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) or the Financial Ombudsman Services.
It was the case that investors paid for the farmland via a company called Powerscourt Services Limited. With the farmland being registered to a company based in Argentina, each and every time that money was sent by investors to Powerscourt Services Limited, shares were transferred the other way, holding them on behalf of the investors. This meant that investors did not ever receive a title to the land nor did they receive any shares that represented a stake in the farmland.
There was a safeguard in place between the Argentinian company and Powerscourt Services Limited which meant that if the payments to investors failed to arrive, Powerscourt Services Limited were allowed to demand that enough of the farmland was sold in order to compensate the investors.
Various different individuals and companies were involved and investors dealt with them without realising that many of them operating via a different law system.
Some investors who invested in SCS Farmland also put their money into some other high risk and unregulated investments resulting in multiple yearly fees and charges from their self-invested personal pension (SIPP) provider despite the fact that no income has been received.
There are some SIPP providers out there that now value the investments at zero given that the values are not certain enough to quantify.
Anyone that has lost money to an investment made in SCS Farmland may still have time to apply for compensation, although they need to act fast as time limitations are in place.
Call us now for a phone or video consultation with one of our legal experts on 0800 041 8358 to find out if you are entitled to compensation, you may even be entitled to additional compensation if you have successfully claimed in the past.
