The High Court has thrown out the claims against two former directors of the collapsed Wilton Group, in a case concerning more than £27m placed in four island trusts, Isle of Man Today reported.
Acting Deemster David Hodge KC found in a judgment issued last week that the claims against the pair had no realistic prospect of success. They were two of eight defendants in the action, which seeks damages of between £10m and £50m.
The claimant, Ukrainian national Nadiia Bondik, alleges that Wilton Group companies mismanaged and misappropriated the trust assets. She also seeks inquiries into where the money and property in the four island trusts, which Wilton’s founder set up for her, have gone.
According to her claim form, she was the trusts’ beneficiary and paid £27,429,122 into them at the start. The claim form says the founder wrote to her in June 2023 to say that “monies appear at this stage to have been lost”.
The court heard that a little over £13m left one of the trusts for GM Secured Lending Opportunities Ltd in April 2022. The same amount was passed from that company to Hartley Pensions Trustees Ltd on the same day.
The group faces legal action in the UK, the US and on the island after its Hartley Pensions subsidiary failed, affecting around 17,000 British pensioners. Isle of Man Today reported that each of its island subsidiaries has since defaulted, been struck off or passed to a receiver or liquidator.
Ms Bondik’s case against the founder and the two former directors covered breaches of duty, whether fiduciary or not, dishonest assistance and conspiracy by unlawful means. Mr Hodge granted the former directors’ applications to set aside the summary judgment and have the claims against them struck out.
He described the claims as “impermissably generic” and “speculative”, and said the claimant was engaged in “a fishing expedition”. He also voiced sympathy for Ms Bondik, who he said seemed to have lost track of the trust assets entirely. The assets might well have been misappropriated, he said, but nothing suggested that either defendant had done, or failed to do, anything to cause that.
One of the two, a chartered accountant, had carried out compliance and accounting work for the companies being sued. She resigned from the boards of Wilton Trustees, Wilton Nominees and Wilton (IoM) in October 2025. Her advocate, Lindsey Bermingham, told the court she had neither handled nor received trust assets and had no contract with the claimant.
The other, the group’s former lead counsel, was represented by Chiva Samani. Mr Samani said the claimant had “not produced a shred of evidence” for her claims.
Ashley Kneale, for Ms Bondik, said his client wanted to establish exactly what had happened. He accused the two former directors of understating their roles.
The judge stressed that his ruling did not change the founder’s position as a defendant. The founder watched the hearing from the public gallery.
The remaining defendants are three island-registered companies, Wilton Trustees (IoM) Ltd, Wilton (IoM) Ltd and Wilton Nominees (IoM) Ltd, plus Wilton Management Ltd, incorporated in the UAE, and Servizon Ltd, registered in the UK.
Wilton Group began in 1998 as a tax and accountancy business. It later expanded into wealth management, corporate finance and pensions administration.
