Quick Overview

History of Events:

1. In March 2016, after failing to contact the representative of Barley Investments Ltd (Barley), we contacted Slaughter & May, the company’s auditor, Slaughter & May, to request to verify about the contract we had signed with Barley Investments Ltd.
2. Shortly within the same month, the representative resigned as a company director.
3. In April 2016, we received an email reply from Slaughter & May that they had conveyed our message but Barley do not want to respond to us.
4. On 22 Dec 2016, we engaged a UK Solicitors to make a formal claim against Barley.
5. We received no reply until in May/Jun 2017 through TLT.
6. From the company filing history in Company House, it is interesting to note that Barclays UK filed to take over the company in Feb 2017 and the change of company name to Barclays (Barley) Ltd in Mar 2017.
7. TLT filed for deletion, informing that the company had no record of contract with us, and the representative, Mr. Carl Thomas Senior was not contactable due to “mandatory block leave”.  No evidence was ever provided despite being ordered to provide in the Judgement dated on 31 Oct 2017.
8. Throughout the exchange of information in preparation for the trial, Barley did not answer our queries through Slaughter and May.
9. During the trial, we finally hear the confirmation that Mr. Senior was informed by Slaugher & May about our request but he had chosen not to reply. Why didn’t he reply?  Is he trying to hide some information?
10. The judge briefly mentioned that Barley should reply to our questions and saved us from expenses and time.  But, the Judge still ordered us to compensate Barley. 
11. Barclays Legal department followed up with us to demand the payment.  They stressed that Barley is a subsidiary of Barclays Bank, and the legal department has the rights to demand payment on behalf. 
12. When we sent the Police Reports we made in UK and Singapore, the legal department became friendly and deny any relations to the fraud.  So, we made a stupid mistake for not reporting to police earlier and having the hope for UK legal system to give us justice.

Why are we ordered to compensate instead?!!!

Why the Judge ordered us, the victim to compensate an irresponsible company? All we have done was politely requested for clarification for the contract we had signed.  Why avoid a simple question?  Why hide behind a “big boy”? 

Why did the “big boy” or parent company (bank) go through all the troubles to protect its subsidiary for wrongdoing?  The bank stressed that Barley is a fully owned subsidiary, and even instructed the Singapore Branch to come after us for the payment.  

Even the Singapore Police Officer was surprised by the judgment! Frankly, we are refusing to pay the penalty fee as we are still waiting for the full Judgement Report to explain what we have done wrong to deserve the penalty.  As what the Judge had commented during the trial, this case would have been resolved or not even raised if Barley or Mr. Senior responded to our question sent via its company auditor.

Even Mr. Senior doubted our authenticity when we asked for clarification through the company auditor, why didn’t it inform us by replying to our legal letter or during the exchange of communications through our solicitors? Why need to hide behind a “mandatory block leave” to avoid direct replies?  Why wait till the Trial date to inform us that Mr. Senior received our queries through Slaughter & May but decided to ignore us?

All we wanted to know how the representative of the fraudulent company who we signed the contract with can communicate with us through the company domain (www.barleyinvestments.co.uk) that was registered at its parent or “big brother” company’s HQ address in London?  They just had an unqualified “director” to inform us that anyone can register a domain.  (I had clarified with Nominet UK,  which finally replied after I made Police Report.  Just read the full details below.)

The most ridiculous part of this case is the Judgement against us.  Why did the Legal system penalise victim and excuse irresponsible companies? 

However, the most ridiculous part of this case is that the Judge actually judged us, the victim for wrongdoing, and expected us to pay damages to the fraudulent company without providing any judgement letter to explain our wrongdoing?  And, when we chose to ignore the judgement, since Barley did not reply to the judgment order dated on 31 Oct 2017, the bank instructed its Singapore Bank to demand payment.

Feeling unjust, bullied and insulted, we decided to open up all the details and share in our website.  We have compiled the full story in 8 chapters and will disclose all the few hundred files and email exchanges (PDF printout) for the public to read and be the judge yourself.   To ensure our files are not abused, we only disclose the files to registered members with nominal fees (Annual fee of $97 or Lifetime Fee of $197).     In our member-only sites, you can access to all our detailed documents, presentation, email exchanges, etc.  These files were categorized and documented by our Compliance Team to conduct due diligence.  It will save your time and effort on due diligence.  In this case, it would have saved us $35K USD on the administrative fees and £200K on the legal expenses.

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