organisation of group of victims

Hi we have to group ourselves and I think we should start to meet.
I'm in France. Anyone in France?
could you state where you are
amount of money stucked in Mirasol (for ex <50,000 euros or > 50,000 euros)
amount of money stucked in Albany and which Albany company

for me
Paris
Mirasol > 50,000 euros
Albany = 0

This is my post from another part of this forum and think it should be in this new topic.

Note: though it is fine to meet on an individual basis in whatever country you're in please use this fourm as the
focus for our efforts as it is the most efficient and effective means of information exchange so we can all act together
in which ever country we are in.

We don't know anything yet until we here from the administrators. I know that the directors have to act for the best interests
of the creditors and have a moral and legal obligation to do so. I think there's more to this than RBS simply pulling their credit facility.
Why did they pull it? What did they discover? They obviously felt that they were in great danger of not getting their money back.
It maybe that those owed money as contractors get a percentage of what they are owed but any chance of members of Mirasol getting any money
rests on trying to discover it's exact legal status and whether RBS really has any rights to do what it is doing with Mirasol. This is why
legal advice is so important. It is not about taking any one to court because we don't know if we have grounds yet. We need to know
what really happened at Albany that lead to RBS taking away their credit facility and what is the status of Mirasol in all this. Somebody,
should collect a list of all the pertinent (what we see as pertinent anyway) questions people have starting with the two above. Then when
we get any answers they should be published (publically on this forum of privately to all individuals via mailing list)
Infact, maybe the questions and answers should be published privately - information is power after all. Also, there needs to be a way
that all those affected can register their interest and rather than each individual persue separate paths wouldn't it be better
for us all to organise together providing a more focused and cohesive and thereby more affective force for all our benefit - and the costs
would be cheaper per individual.

we need:

1. a list of all people willing to join in this collective effort (David M?)
2. a list of all the pertinent questions
3. Someone to get advice as to where we stand now and what we should do next and what we can expect to happen.
4. What are the likely stages of this action and their costs so we can make decision as a group
as to how far we want to persue this (with practical, legal and financial realities in mind).
4. Finally, Someone (maybe more than one person) to co-ordinate this ( i believe Daid M is has already started this but is maybe too much for one person)


I hope people have further contributions/ideas. Lets see some movement on this.

Of course there's a lot more to this than RBS pulling funding.

Hi !
I too think it is very important we organise ourselves in order to coordinate legal action
which I think is vital for us as a group moving foreward ...
Unfortunately we seem to be spread all over Europe (I am in Germany) , and obtaining legal advice will cost money; I can't imagine anyone of us would be
too keen on assuming responsibility for paying the law companies fees and spreading the cost to othr members of the group.
I know David has suggested a law firm in Leeds who seem already to be aware of the Albany/Mirasol situation.
The only way I can see of splitting the costs would be along the lines that we all sign up with this law company and we ask them to split
the cost of legal advice between everyone who is comitted. I think I will phone them on Monday and determine if this would be possible.
I will post any answers or suggested solutions into this thread ...
I think David (who recommended them) may already have mentioned an idea of costs ?
Seem to remember figures of something like £1000 for an evaluation and £25,000 should it go to court ?


To answer the question as to why the funds are pulled, the following quote from one of the Recruiter articles may provide a clue:

According to the letter, the funding facility which was used to finance specific businesses as well as to provide working capital for the group,
was withdrawn following a review by the lenders of Albany’s contract with two major clients.
The letter says: "The reason for this decision was because of the extended payment terms which are often associated when dealing
with corporate clients, and because a large proportion of funds due from these clients are payable to staffing companies as opposed to contractors."


Now I remember RBS as being one of the worst affected Banks in terms of holding toxic debt so as they are now being controlled by the Government, presumably they
are no longer as willing to invest in what they assume as risky ventures ??

This statement seems to imply that Albany have had to fork a large sum of money to pay salaries to employees of these "Two major clients" in the short
term but will hopefully get paid in the "extended" period ..

This is what I personally am praying for ...

I think, too, that the first thing would be to have a list of people who are willing to put some money into the effort of finding out what our options are.
Whether these people would risk potentially a lot more money to go to court about this, would be a different question.
In any case, I am willing to put some money into a legal effort. And clearly, my willingness to do this will grow with the size of a
group of like-minded individuals.

I expect it will be quite difficult to organize something like this, for such a diverse group of people in so many different countries, but probably not impossible.
I also expect that the person(s) organizing this should be based in the UK, where all this is happening. Basically, we'll need a volunteer from the UK to do this, the way I see it.
We'll have to appreciate that that person (or persons) will have to invest substantial time and energy into this.

About the list of pertinent questions: I don't know if we are even able to ask the really relevant questions without legal advice. The way I imagine this would work is that the law firm that we contact would ask the questions, which we then would try to answer, based on our collective experience with Albany / Mirasol.

hurting wrote:

This is my post from another part of this forum and think it should be in this new topic.

Note: though it is fine to meet on an individual basis in whatever country you're in please use this fourm as the
focus for our efforts as it is the most efficient and effective means of information exchange so we can all act together
in which ever country we are in.

We don't know anything yet until we here from the administrators. I know that the directors have to act for the best interests
of the creditors and have a moral and legal obligation to do so. I think there's more to this than RBS simply pulling their credit facility.
Why did they pull it? What did they discover? They obviously felt that they were in great danger of not getting their money back.
It maybe that those owed money as contractors get a percentage of what they are owed but any chance of members of Mirasol getting any money
rests on trying to discover it's exact legal status and whether RBS really has any rights to do what it is doing with Mirasol. This is why
legal advice is so important. It is not about taking any one to court because we don't know if we have grounds yet. We need to know
what really happened at Albany that lead to RBS taking away their credit facility and what is the status of Mirasol in all this. Somebody,
should collect a list of all the pertinent (what we see as pertinent anyway) questions people have starting with the two above. Then when
we get any answers they should be published (publically on this forum of privately to all individuals via mailing list)
Infact, maybe the questions and answers should be published privately - information is power after all. Also, there needs to be a way
that all those affected can register their interest and rather than each individual persue separate paths wouldn't it be better
for us all to organise together providing a more focused and cohesive and thereby more affective force for all our benefit - and the costs
would be cheaper per individual.

we need:

1. a list of all people willing to join in this collective effort (David M?)
2. a list of all the pertinent questions
3. Someone to get advice as to where we stand now and what we should do next and what we can expect to happen.
4. What are the likely stages of this action and their costs so we can make decision as a group
as to how far we want to persue this (with practical, legal and financial realities in mind).
4. Finally, Someone (maybe more than one person) to co-ordinate this ( i believe Daid M is has already started this but is maybe too much for one person)


I hope people have further contributions/ideas. Lets see some movement on this.

I agree with you but at some stage and regarding the amount of money involved I think a face to face meeting with the other persons and the law firm might be a good idea.
London, Germany, Belgium it's all quite near. We could organise some meetings I think. Anyone interested? For ex I can prepare something in Paris. I can go to London or Brussels as well. We could do a video conf with Skype. Because at some point we are going to need to negociate with the law firm. We will have more strength to negociate if we have prepared it than letting them speak to us on a one to one basis.
That's why I really think we have to start right now to organise ourselve and not let a law firm do it for us.
For ex a small group of people with more than 50,000 euros involved could meet and negociate with the firm and then propose others to join afterwards.
And I think we have to go and see more than one firm (I can check with some people I know in London for ex)
Anyone interested please let me know (here or with a private message)

we don't need to physically meet. Your idea of a video conference though is a good one.
I don't we will ne negotiating with Lawyers :-)
Why do want not to include those with less than 50,000 in Mirasol. Already, you being divisive. We need to numbers
of people. We need to SHARE the information and costs. Without commitments on numbers even tentatively and these numbers should include everyone. Actually, i'm a little disappointed that not more people have jumped on the idea or responded this forum which i think is an excellent idea. COME ON GUYS SORT YOURSELVES OUT.

it's just a proposition. Since it seems to me few people were interested in meeting I thought of focusing on people with big amount involved...
I agree with you the more people gather the better

Hi,

in my case is more than 50 K Eur at Mirasol.
For the meeting, with NetMeeting is more than enough as first step.
Later on probably makes sence to all meet somewhere with lawyer(s).

question: I have searched a lot on internet and seems we are the only ones speaking about Albany/Mirasol issues (also at Recruiter and ContractorUK forum).
Don't you feel there are not many contractors affected? thought hundreds will be affected unless other people is already moving around.

Finally, I guess we should take action immediatelly. It would be nice probably to have a representant (lawyer) following the situation together with new administration, don't you think so?

Regards,
Dylan

I agree Dylan it does seem strange that not many people are taking part in this forum.

As for action we should here something this week according to the letter there should be a telephone line
set up by the administrators. Hopefully, i/we should here something back from the lawyer David M suggested
we send a mail to. Once we have some advice and information we can take the next step but yes, we should move quickly now.

Another strange fact: if Albany is a worldwide company, are not Albany contractors outside europe affected?

Many questions and only few unclear answers.

Albany 50k
Mirasol 110k
last paid 31/12

Hello all,

I'm based in Belgium, and am owed €11,000 by Mirasol.
I'm especially interested in knowing if the Mirasol funds were raided by Albany, or if they were seized by RBS.

Good luck to us all.
Paul

If you are interested in Legal Action why not contact Joe Speakman ( Contact details on Blog ). He can coordinate.

They will require proof of identity and £1000 to begin any real work. They are a big firm and handle complex cases, I have never used them before !

I want to know what is going, is the fund frozen , if yes then why was money transferred in on JAN 10th. If its not forozen then why is it not being distributed.

RBS are in trouble but they are under some political control. They have killed what seemed to be a decent company ( I think most agree on that ). I think it is because the facility was being used for reasons different to the original idea. If the Directors of Mirasol have traded with our money ( eg backing Albany ) then there wouldnt be a problem as from what I can gather there would have been more money available than the RBS facility.

People make rash decisions when things start to go wrong, my concern is that funds were transferred here and there to cover payments falling due until the whole things was no longer manageable.

My payments have always been via ABN in Holland ( although an RBS subsidiary ) and I never worked for the affected companies.

Accounting on my Mirasol account was not correct either in January. Not enough was transferred in compaerd to what was invoiced. etc etc.

(Mentally I have written this money off [>>> 50k Mirasol & < 50k Albany] So hanging on in hope is something that I am no longer preapred to do !

In my family and extended family I have Lawyers and Barristers ( not in this field unfortunately !!! ) including my Partner! My friend from youth is an MP should we need to highlight RBS actions publicly. I take their advice when I can get and they say act fast !

Anybody know of an Lawyers that maybe experienced in handling such a case as ours?

...

Could anyone else who would like to join together to persue this please send me a private mail via this forum
with a email addres, whether Albany or Mirasol and how much your liable to lose.
I am at the moment talking to a number of laywers as are one or other on this forum. We aim to come together
in the next 24 hours to see what our next steps are as we need to act quickly

I am another one in Belgium. I have (or had) 20k in Mirasol, nothing in Albany and am currently looking for work, so could really do with this money.

I got an email from Sarah Morrey Today, but apparently she was working remotely (read into that what you want). I asked her for more information, but, as yet, did not receive a reply.

I think we really need more information before considering legal action, but with little to no communication from Mirasol it's getting very frustrating. I am certainly interested in joining in should it come to it.

Check with the lawyers but I think the first thing we need to do is to split the Albany and Mirasol people into two groups. As there are more companies failing now we may have additional "groups" joining us very soon.

A poll would be good to see the split but the number of users on this forum is still growing (as it only went up over the weekend) and so we might want to wait at least a few more days. I can make the poll a "sticky" post which will always stay on top of the list too.

https://albanyandmirasol.forumotion.com/albany-group-and-mirasol-news-and-information-f3/latest-article-about-albany-mirasol-dated-05-02-10-update-t22.htm

We really need information!

Another Victim wrote:

We really need information! Fast! And since a lot of people have gleaned snippets of information over the last few months either from agencies, contractors or Albany employees, we need to collect that information (and yes, some of this may only be collect-able in confidence). Isolated some information may seem irrelevant but taken collectively they could point the way for us to a course of action.

As this may get worse, even for those who may have managed to get out in time, it is important that we stay focused and try to use every possible means to collect the facts. It is just naive to assume that anyone else will act in our interest.

At the moment we have very little to go on except speculation and gut feelings. And my gut feeling was to get out of Albany as long ago as August. Alas I carried on because I didn't expect my contract to last much longer. So even at that stage, there are probably some who may have had more factual information than I did. This could be very useful.

As a concrete step, I suggest that a part of this forum is set up for collecting information IN STRICT CONFIDENCE, i.e. where anyone can submit information that wont be seen by others visiting the board (this may enable some to contribute, who wouldn't otherwise do so in a public forum, for whatever reason). This information, in the initial instance, need be seen only by the organizer of the forum (AlbanyContractor?), or any group so formed with the purpose of taking this further offline. Updates can then be given to victims on possible avenues to follow, given the available facts.

Very good point, read the contracts that you signed and do not post anything confidential to this forum.
All can and will be used against sgainst us later that is posted here if this goes to court. Which I personally think it will not go into.

All we need to find at the moment why Albany group companies went to administration (if they truly did or are going into).
At the moment none of the Albany group are not officially yet in that state.
In a best "rosy" scenario we will all get back our money and Albany is acting in good faith seeking administration in behal of the affected creditors and emploees.

If Albny did something illegal then we are all in a different situation.
I'm not a expert in law in England but this is my take on things.

Hi,

I'm still interested in having someone coordinating possible action.
But what to do now that administrators have been nominated?
Do we wait after 24th at least?
Who is the single point of contact of victims currently?

Thanks,

[You can email :- MirasolAlbany@googlemail.com ]