ALLWINES: NO ACTION OVER 3M DEFICIT

Published: 23 July, 2008

By Jim Budd

Liquidators Deloitte & Touche are close to winding up Allwines Ltd, which sold wine as an investment and went bust in April 2001 with a deficiency of 3 million. Approximately 150,000 worth of wine was held in two bonded warehouses; 60,000 has been realised from sales of wine, so there is a discrepancy between this and claims from about 200 investors for more than 3.3 million. The company's directors are David Allan and his wife, who is understood to have played no part in the business. There will be no payout to creditors as all monies have been used up in liquidation and legal fees. It seems highly likely that some of the wine sold by Allwines was not bought (or the same wine was sold to more than one client) and some was subsequently sold without investors' authorisation. Although Deloitte & Touche submitted a report to the DTI following its investigations into the directors' conduct, no action appears to have been taken, nor has there been any police investigation. My portfolio was valued by David Allan at 80,000,' one investor told Harpers. It included Mouton 1982 and 1986. All I have had back are 12 virtually worthless bottles.' Allwines is one of the few wine investment scams that involved someone from within the wine trade. Most of the other scams have been run by people from the financial services world.

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