Langbar International

Its strange how Rybaks pic will display here but never in the header..and ADVFN have removed the Edit facility in the header ,so he cant be replaced !









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Langbar prepares £100m lawsuits blitz
James Rossiter, Evening Standard
15 February 2006

THE new bosses of scandal-struck Langbar are gearing up to launch lawsuits totalling £100m against a raft of the company's former City financial advisers.

Accountants Baker Tilly, brokers Arden Partners, Nabarro Wells and Insinger Townsley, and lawyers Lawrence Graham are all in the firing line as chairman David Buchler and finance director Chris Wallis draw up plans to recover funds owed to angry investors in the shell company.

All five firms were involved in various public fundraising exercises-with Langbar since its flotation-on Aim in late 2003.

Insinger founder Barry Townsley, a Labour Party donor, has just withdrawn his name from a list of potential life peers after being embroiled in a cronyism row.

Last November Langbar, then run by former Baker Tilly financier Stuart Pearson, rocked the financial markets after revealing it was the victim of a suspected fraud involving £365m of funds thought to have been in Brazilian and Dutch bank accounts. The company is now at the centre of an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office and City of London police.

At a stormy shareholders' meeting in London yesterday called by Buchler to update investors, Sion Richards of Jones Day, one of Langbar's new law firms, said he anticipated 'soon being in a position to commence procedures with a view to recovering monies'. He added that he was not ruling out any of Langbar's former advisers.

Sources close to the company told the Evening Standard Langbar was looking to draw up lawsuits worth 'between £50m and £100m against former advisers'.

Baker Tilly, Insinger Townsely and Nabarro Wells advised the company when it listed on Aim in October 2003 and raised new money under the leadership of founder and major shareholder Mariusz Ryback.

In November that year the company told the financial markets it was sitting on contracts worth $663m.

Lawyers Lawrence Graham are also in the firing line as the company's main legal adviser from flotation to January this year. Another potential target is Arden Partners, which helped Langbar on a £4.36m shares fund raiser only last August.

In September Arden acted as Langbar's financial adviser when it told financial markets it had 'successfully transferred' $294m of company cash deposits from a Brazilian to a Dutch bank account.

Buchler is also understood to be working on claims against Langbar's founding directors, including Ryback, and its main financial backer, Lambert Financial.



Langbar narrows cash search
By David Blackwell
Published: April 28 2006 03:00 | Last updated: April 28 2006 03:00

Langbar International, the former Aim shell searching for £365m of missing cash, claimed yesterday to have made "significant progress in tracing the proceedings of the fraud" that it believes had been perpetrated.

The company has also widened its legal proceedings against former directors and other parties.

The asset-freezing injunction granted by the High Court in February has been increased from €29m to €49.5m (£34.5m) and the number of defendants in the English proceedings has been increased to seven with the inclusion of Izabela Rybak, wife of company founder Mariusz Rybak, and SCI Atol, a company incorporated in Monaco. Mr and Mrs Rybak and SCI Atol intend to defend the claims. The company has started proceedings against Mr and Mrs Rybak in the High Court of Singapore, supported by a freezing injunction, granted on April 13, which secures assets in Singapore.

In addition, it has made "a criminal complaint against certain of the defendants in Switzerland", which is being handled by an investigating magistrate in Geneva.