Maxwell avoids eviction with aid of 'white knight'

[emad]

Maxwell avoids eviction with aid of 'white knight'
By Aislinn Simpson
Published: 04 August 2005

The youngest son of the disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell and his wife have secured a last-minute stay of execution on the repossession of their family's £3m home.

Kevin Maxwell, 46, his wife Pandora and their seven children, were due to be evicted from the Elizabethan Moulsford Manor near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.

A 28-day repossession order was made on their home at Oxford County Court on 3 June, to be executed if they did not pay the mortgage firm Lexi Holdings £2,926,242.

But yesterday it emerged that an unnamed "white knight" - an acquaintance of Mr Maxwell's - had bought the home, which has been on the market for some time. Mr Maxwell refused to reveal the identity of the buyer in public, but did pass it to the judge in writing. The court heard that his company was called Roundabout Holdings, registered in Grand Cayman. An agreement was reached that the Maxwells pay £150,000 by 4pm on 16 August. Should they default on that, the house will be immediately repossessed.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article303508.ece

GRAND CAYMAN-based 'White Knight' - a mutual pal of Maxwell's No1 champion and best friend JONATHAN AITKEN???

[emad]

1. From last night's London Evening Standard 'Londoner's Diary':

Not on internet.
SNIP:
...Reports of Kevin's fiscal plight - he owes a company specialising in short-term property bridging loans �2.3 million - warrant a second glance.

Maxwell was acquitted of all criminal charges (re collapse of Robert Maxwell's business bankruptcy lawsuit). However, it appeared that �24million had been diverted from Maxwell Communication Corporation (MCC) at the time of his disgraced father Robert's death in November 1991 and the money has still not been recovered.

The money was raised by Kevin using 2.3 million shares in Berlitz, the nternational language school, as collateral. Berlitz was then owned by Macmillan, then a subsidiary of MCC.

A criminal trial that saw him sccused of a fraud conspiracy involving Berlitz shares worth �112 million was abandoned in September 1996.
ENDSNIP.


Abandonned, why? Because Maxwell suborned the principal witness against him and was aided and abetted in virtually destroying the paper trail of evidence against him on orders of UK PM John Major.

As I remember it this paper trail involved other frauds connected to the MCC portfolio - mostly property assets in Central London. These have been the subject of successful civil litigation in the High Court of Justice in London and may be materially crucial to the portfolio of assets connected with the 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano.

The murder trial of Ambrosiano's CEO Roberto 'God's Banker' Calvi resumes in Rome in October.

[Nye Bevan]

2. A little OT but Maxwell always reminds me of the Private Eye clerihew...

(from when he was still alive):

Robert Maxwell
Avoids paying tax well.
Like many a greedy swine
He registers his companys in Lichtenstein.

And another one for any old-timers who remember the Cecil Parkinson-Sara Keys scandal (quite possible nobody):

Miss Sara Keys
Proved impossible to please
After she had been laid
By the minister for trade.

[Taxloss]

3. I remember Parkinson-Keays.

Cecil Parkinson was such a slimy bastard.

[Nye Bevan]

4. Yes, the ultimate smarmy git...

but Maggie loved him.

[emad]

5. Remember them both well. And expect that idiotic and draconian

gagging writ on Flora Keys Parkinson to be lifted soon ....or at least just as soon as Thatcher pops HER clogs and joins old horror Ted Heath in that Tory Party Central Office in the sky..

[Mr Creosote]

6. But surely Maxwell WAS evicted?

The week after Saskia.

I'll get me coat.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

7. Halleluliah! I'm not the only one watching it!!

[Mr Creosote]

8. To be honest

we've been watching less and less of it as time goes on. I think I might write to the OED with this new definition: "bisexual (n) (pron "mah cosy") - someone who desperately wants to win big brother"

Derek should have won IMO.