Paul Careless, the controversial executive whose company made £60 million acting as marketing agent to collapsed London Capital & Finance, is to be sued in an unrelated fraud case.
Warranties giant Domestic & General was last night granted the right to add Careless to its High Court claim against Service Box, a company he founded.
D&G claims Service Box’s call centre staff were phoning D&G customers and falsely claiming to be D&G staff to poach their business. D&G alleges disclosure of hundreds of phone calls shows Service Box employees consistently making “malicious falsehoods” by falsely telling D&G customers their policies were coming up for renewal in order to try to take the business.
Careless was arrested last month in a Serious Fraud Office probe into LCF, over which he denies wrongdoing.
He had argued he only had a limited role in the day-to-day running at Service Box but judge Chief Master Matthew Marsh ruled there was a real prospect D&G may show he had some idea of the alleged misconduct.
Service Box has denied the allegations as “spurious and unfounded”. It and Careless, declined to comment further today.
D&G said: “We have taken decisive legal action against what we believe to be the actions of rogue traders designed to mislead and take advantage of consumers, many of them elderly and vulnerable.”
