Colin Hardman & Ors v Spencer Golding

Facts

Mr Spencer Golding was one of the individuals behind London Capital & Finance Plc (LCF), which operated a Ponzi scheme funded by some 11,600 bondholders from whom around £237 million was raised, many of them people of modest means who lost money they could not afford to lose. LCF's liquidators brought proceedings against various individuals including Mr Golding; he failed to comply with his disclosure obligations and was debarred from defending, and following trial Miles J entered judgment against him for somewhat over £329 million in a judgment handed down on 14 November 2024. A bankruptcy order was made against Mr Golding on 5 February 2025 by District Judge Harper, sitting in the County Court at Hastings, so that in the ordinary course he would have been discharged after one year. On 30 December 2025 his trustees in bankruptcy, Colin Hardman, Clare Lloyd and Milan Vuceljic, applied under section 279 of the Insolvency Act 1986 for suspension of his discharge, relying on an almost total absence of substantive cooperation: an uncompleted preliminary information questionnaire sent on 6 March 2025, no disclosed residential address, a series of shifting reasons for not attending interview, and an assertion that he owned no electronic device. An interim suspension was made by ICC Judge Burton on 21 January 2026 pending this substantive hearing, at which Mr Golding did not appear.