Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Was LibDem Donation Permissable and Will Courts Force Them to Repay It?

The Times questions this morning whether the 2.4 million pound donation to the LibDems by convicted perjurer Michael Brown was permissable under Electoral Commission rules. Three of the four investors in 5th Avenue Partners were foreign, which raises the possibilty that the LibDems were in effect given a foreign donation. This is The Times's speculation, not mine.

These four investors, who include former Man United chairman Martin Edwards, believe it was their money which Brown donated and they want it back. However, the LibDems have spent the money and couldn't pay it back even if they felt morally obliged to - which they don't.

The next stage is for the four investors to launch a court action against the LibDems. Watch this space.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sehr geEhrte Iain

Have your legal commenters clarified the legal status of the LibDem Party for us ? Are the Members personally liable for the Party's debts ?

Should you be asking Sero (Guido's Co-Conspirator to get hold of the latest LibDem accounts !?

Your obedient servant etc

Scipio said...

They WILL have to gove the money back, I am sure of it!

neil craig said...

He has been convicted of telling some sort of lie on his passport application. That is not remotely being convicted of financial fraud & I think it would be very unwise of anybody to take your advice to sue for money on the basis of this conviction, let alone sue a 3rd party.

Personally I think this a less serious charge than stting fire to curtains or supplying anti-aircraft missiles to Moslem terrorists engaged in genocide which receive less punishment (in the latter case none.

http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/news-2004-11-15.html

Anonymous said...

As far as company donations go I don't think the nationality of the owners is relevant.

the issue is whether, as far as the Limp Dems reasonably knew, the company was trading in the Uk at the time.

The EC have cleared them on this.

And to answer g eagle's question - the Limp Dems don't have any major debts at present and can probably put their hands on a couple of million in soft loans if they really need to.

CityUnslicker said...

hopefully this will drag on in court etc for a year or two and then the LD's will be stymied for funds at the next election.

Unless Blears has her way and they start robbing all of us!

Praguetory said...

The companies have never traded or filed in the UK so that breaches another requirement. It's clear that the LibDems should not have accepted. Wasn't this covered by the blogs back in June or July? We got anons pretending not to be LibDems defending them on those threads, too. If someone does their job properly the Dems are in the dung.

Anonymous said...

Anon 1:09pm

Vielen Dank

G E

Scipio said...

Mark Senior - er, because that was before the law was changed. What the Tories did then was stoooopid, but not illegal! What the Lib Dems did was illegal!