Flybe shareholders have waited long enough – please help us finally uncover the truth
This solicitation is published by ShareSoc on behalf of the Flybe Shareholder Group and publication thereof does not represent an endorsement of the proposed action. For further information readers can contact the action group via their CrowdJustice page.
In early 2019, upbeat statements by Flybe’s leadership were followed by a dramatic collapse in the value of its shares, wiping out investors and prompting urgent questions which remain unanswered.
Hosking Partners, the company’s largest institutional investor, noisily threatened action then abruptly withdrew. Not one of Flybe’s other top ten institutional holders, nor any of the directors, has responded to efforts to engage them. Lawyers have suggested that private settlements and Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) may be the reason for their silence.
Many individual investors, including Flybe employees who invested their hard-earned savings, feel cheated, frustrated, and ignored. We were obstructed from attending meetings and were given dismissive or diversionary responses as to whether losses could have been avoided.
Information appears to have been kept not just from regular shareholders but also Flybe staff. Long-serving former employees believe that the directors themselves may have contributed to its rapid decline, including overseeing questionable transactions. There is continuing unease about the transparency and governance of Flybe’s demise.
We, the Flybe Shareholder Group, need your support to apply for a court order (specifically a non-party or Norwich Pharmacal Order, or NPO) to access the documents needed to discover what happened to Flybe and, if appropriate, bring a claim against Directors’ Insurance to compensate shareholders for undeserved losses.
We have obtained an opinion from a leading barrister specialising in fraud, regulation, and professional negligence, that Flybe and its liquidator’s refusal to comply with the Group’s requests for access to documents to inform the claim are ‘not common sense’ and ‘focused on the technicalities of the matter’- in other words, they are evasive.
Legal experts, including claim financing specialists, agree on the need for the NPO, through which a Judge could order the release of documents to show what was said behind closed doors, to explain the contradictions between directors’ statements and how events unfolded (profit warning, changes to the company’s listing and shareholder rights, strategic review and irregular bid process), and to provide clarity around questionable asset disposals and management decisions.
After almost six years of effort, we are at a Catch 22. It has been a huge challenge to find anyone with the resources to bring the court order, least of all investors who have lost so much money and lack the deep pockets, time, and legal expertise needed to navigate these barriers and bring a claim themselves.
Our only practical option is to crowdfund the court order using CrowdJustice, the leading online crowdfunding platform for legal issues. Your donations could help us obtain key evidence through the court order, potentially de-risking the claim for expert funding backers and enabling us to retain lawyers currently constrained from assisting.
We need your help now to finally gain access to the truth behind Flybe’s collapse. Your support means the difference between accountability and silence.
Please consider donating whatever you can; each pound brings us closer to accountability and even a small donation could help us uncover the truth and help deliver justice.
Thank you.
The Flybe Shareholder Group
You can find out more about the Flybe Shareholder Group and the claim background on our CrowdJustice campaign page and the following press articles at the Daily Mail, Business Travel News and BBC websites.
This article reflects the opinions of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
