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It has not been the best of years for tech entrepreneur Robert Bonnier.
The former dotcom era high-flyer (who once upon a time was CEO of Scoot.com), has more recently been fighting legal battles on multiple fronts with investors after the failure of his social media start-up Aaqua, which is now insolvent. Recent developments have not been positive.
Last month he suffered a major setback when Reform UK treasurer and property developer Nick Candy won a civil fraud case against him. The judge found Bonnier had lied “repeatedly and determinedly” — including claiming tech giant Apple and luxury group LVMH were in advanced discussions to invest in Aaqua — in order to secure an investment by Candy Ventures (CVS). Candy’s firm was awarded damages of £4.6mn plus interest and an award of costs. (Read MainFT’s investigation into Aaqua here).
To try and make sure it got paid, CVS secured a £6.2mn interim freezing order over Bonnier’s assets at the end of last month. It alleged in its skeleton argument that the entrepreneur — who last month said his net wealth was now “substantially below zero” — “seemingly continues to lead a lavish lifestyle”.
His assets include, claimed CVS, a shareholding in a French company, a bank account in Jumeirah and a company incorporated in the Dubai Airport Free Zone, as well as Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and Patek Philippe watches. CVS also claimed he may have an interest in a Dubai villa and a $12mn apartment in Singapore.
Bonnier was unable to prevent the interim freezing order, despite writing a rambling reply (which was not signed as a statement of truth) to CVS’s arguments, in which he called Candy’s lawyers the “scum of the earth”. He said in a witness statement that his estate was “non-existing”, adding: “There are no expensive apartments in Singapore, villas in Dubai or Bali as are alleged.”
Things have not been much better in another case Bonnier has been fighting: bankruptcy proceedings brought by tech investment firm All Active Asset (AAA), another investor in Aaqua, which had made a loan to Bonnier that was not fully repaid. This month his court challenge against the proceedings was dismissed after he wrote to the court to say he would not be able to attend. He was later declared bankrupt.
A feature of both cases is a company called AudioBoom, a London-listed podcast publisher whose shares rocketed during the coronavirus pandemic before falling back sharply in the 2022 tech sell-off.
CVS, a major shareholder in AudioBoom, had made its investment in Bonnier’s company by exchanging 1.5mn AudioBoom shares for Aaqua shares.
AAA, meanwhile, had made the €1.75mn loan to Bonnier in 2022 to allow him to repay a debt to a former business associate called Ronald Zimet. The loan was accompanied by a guarantee from Bonnier’s wife, Nashida, with shares in AudioBoom (which have since fallen sharply in price) acting as security.
CVS alleged, according to the judgment, that Bonnier “was involved in spreading rumours about an AudioBoom takeover, in order to push up the share price and thus maximise the income that Aaqua could make by selling shares”.
CVS’s claims include:
In October 2021, Bonnier told Steven Smith, a 10 per cent owner of CVS and a non-exec director of AudioBoom, that Spotify was interested in buying AudioBoom, and he thought it would bid £19.20 per share by the end of the month. Bonnier told Smith and Candy that he was in advanced talks with Spotify about the bid and in personal contact with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek.
In/around February 2022, Bonnier told Smith that Spotify’s interest had cooled, but that he was now in talks with Vivendi about buying AudioBoom at a significant premium.
According to Smith, Bonnier’s claims about takeover talks were “deliberate ruses” to distract CVS from the supposed investment by Apple/LVMH.
Candy had heard in Q1 2022 via Smith that the AudioBoom board believed the rumours about Spotify and Vivendi had been started by Bonnier “to pump the share price”.
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Bonnier said in the witness statement he had been “falsely accused” of “whitewashing and market abuse”. He added that “Aaqua acquired even more AudioBoom shares in the public market [and] that was one of the reasons for the dramatic price increase of which Mr Candy clearly benefited.”
In his written judgment last month, Mr Justice Robert Bright said that Aaqua had in effect been financed by selling AudioBoom shares, but he did not directly say whether or not Bonnier had tried to inflate AudioBoom’s share price.
However, his comments during the hearing are more revealing. When deciding what costs should be awarded, Justice Bright said that, as well as the fraudulent misrepresentation around CVS’s investment, “various other statements were made which were untrue to other people with a view, for example, to ramping up the price of AudioBoom’s shares, indicating to me that there is a widespread and reckless pattern of lying”.
Bonnier has previously run into trouble with regulators. In 2003, he was reprimanded by the Takeover Panel over dealings in Regus shares. In 2004, he was fined a then-record £290,000 by the Financial Services Authority for making inaccurate disclosures about the trades.
The FCA and AudioBoom declined to comment.
“It takes people like me and those similar to me to never ever give up to fighting for justice, the truth and the right cause,” Bonnier told Alphaville in an email, adding that he had “no prior knowledge” of the time, place or judge in the bankruptcy hearing.
He added that the allegations against him were “spurious”.
“I am the first one to apologise if I have made mistakes and perhaps certainly should have done things differently but I never ever crossed the line — ever!” he said.
Data visualisation by Ray Douglas
