Embed from Getty ImagesOver the last few weeks the High Court has heard some astonishing evidence in the bitter wrongful dismissal claim brought by the former CEO of Signia, a wealth management company, as reported in The Independent.
High profile entrepreneur John Caudwell has frequently made the news over the last couple of decades. The founder of mobile phones retailer Phones 4U has presented himself as a forthright, no-nonsense style of businessman. According to the website Caudwell.com (owned, registered and administered by one John D Caudwell and which is currently “down for maintenance”) he is a “successful entrepreneur and philanthropist” who “built an immensely successful mobile telecoms company”.
Signia is a wealth management company that was jointly founded by Nathalie Dauriac and six of her Coutts Bank colleagues in 2010. Another co-founder was Mr Caudwell. The business focuses on high end wealth management. All appeared to be well until details emerged of an extraordinary dispute between Ms Dauriac and Mr Caudwell, ostensibly in connection with expenses claims amounting to some £33,000. Ms Dauriac claimed that the expenses investigation was unfair and was, in effect, trumped up to deprive her of her £12 million 49% stake in the business, which was bought out for a nominal £2.00 fee.
Giving evidence in the High Court trial Ms Dauriac says that when they set up the business in 2010, “Mr Caudwell had asked me…as a last minute condition of jointly setting up the business, to give an undertaking to him not to have children, a proposal I did not agree to”.
Ms Dauriac claimed in evidence that Mr Caudwell orchestrated an “elaborate conspiracy” against her, resulting in her claim of constructive dismissal.
For its part, Signia maintained that she wrongfully claimed the expenses, that her approach to them was “brazen” and that she was “guilty of gross misconduct”.
In his evidence, Mr Caudwell said that the breakdown of his business relationship with Ms Dauriac, who he considered to be a “best friend” was like suffering a “bereavement”: