Finance firm sues former rogue boss
Jazeb Jones
(CNS Business): One of Cayman’s leading offshore financial services firms is suing a former director for a catalogue of wrongdoing that the company claims could have damaged its reputation. DMS has filed a lawsuit against Jazeb Jones, who was until earlier this month the MD of its bank and trust arm, over unauthorized relationships with clients, the misuse of the company credit card, taking lavish gifts that may have been bribes, and potential violations of banking regulations.
The suit, which was filed in the Cayman Islands Grand Court on 31 March, is seeking, among other things, to recover the unauthorized spending on the company credit cards and the secret profits Jones may have made with his rogue deals, as well as reputational damages.
In the legal document DMS alleges that Jones was conducting secret and questionable business while he was working for DMS Bank & Trust Ltd (DB&T) and was negotiating unorthodox and unauthorized deals with clients that should, the firm claims, have raised red flags as a result of the actions the clients were asking Jones to do.
The suit states that Jones set up accounts without the other directors in the firm knowing for two separate clients, named Client A and Client B. When DMS found out, the firm told him to close them many times but he failed to do so. After launching an internal investigation, the DMS management eventually fired Jones. However, they say he sneaked back into the offices, using a visitor’s pass because his own had been blocked, and took a box of property from the firm, which has not yet been identified. The management team learned of his clandestine entry from the CCTV, the suit reveals.
The legal documents outline expensive overseas trips that Jones took, paid for by these unauthorized business clients, for himself and his family, and luxury gifts, including a hand-made suit, that he took from the customers that are understood to be under investigation in the UK.
Jones was sacked on 9 March, something he appears to have tried to deny via attorneys in an email exchange to the Miami-based watchdog, OffshoreAlert, threatening to sue the publisher, David Marchant.
However, DMS makes it clear in the suit that they sacked Jones on 9 March after written warnings about his conduct.
DMS also suggests that Jones had been trying to set up an offshore bank in Cayman to deal with the unauthorized clients. What appears to be the dodgy dealings of the former director were described in the suit as putting the DMS group as a whole at serious reputational risk.
“The Defendant, placing his personal interests above those of DB&T, willfully refused to terminate Client A’s account, despite having been repeatedly instructed to do so,” the suit notes, as it points to that client being the subject of criminal fraud investigations.
“The Defendant knew of his duties to the Plaintiffs under the Employment Contract, and of his fiduciary duties as a director of DB&T. Notwithstanding this knowledge, the Defendant continued to engage in his course of misconduct in his relationships with Client A and Client B, and in so doing, improperly appropriated to himself benefits and opportunities which became available to him only by virtue of his position as an employee of the Plaintiffs and a director of DB&T,” the writ states.
DMS added in the claim that Jones knew that his conduct was wrong but “engaged in conscious and deliberate efforts to conceal and mislead others about his actions”.
The firm said it had advised the defendant that accepting gifts of hospitality was against DMS Group policy and he was given a formal written warning over “his acceptance of excessive and unauthorised gifts of hospitality, without informing his fellow directors”, and he still kept up his relationship with the clients.
“The Defendant’s actions and deliberate failures, in light of his knowledge, give rise to an inescapable inference of dishonesty on the party of the Defendant,” DMS stated.
The firm said Jones is liable to DMS for all the unauthorised and secret profits and benefits he has derived from his breaches of duties under the Employment Contract and of his fiduciary duties and the property removed by him from the offices during his unauthorised entry.
“The Defendant is also liable to account to the Plaintiffs for all unpaid personal and other expenses incurred by him through the misuse of the MasterCard debit card issued to him by the Plaintiffs,” the lawsuit states.
Category: Finance, Financial Crime
Sounds like too many people are sharpening the pitch forks without hearing both sides of the story. I kind of smell witch hunt.
Quote:
Like Anonymous says:
09/04/2015 at 4:23 pm
Why don’t you ask the Caymanian owner of the business.
Huh? What race is Canadian? Its not personal, he is probably a good guy to party with. Also I ask the question again what qualifications and experience did he have to jump into this role? he left university only in 2000. yet by 2012 he was a Director and a global head or some such at Butterfield back in 2009. I keep seeing this over and over. He was probably in over his depth at DMS hence his mistakes.
Why don’t you ask the Caymanian owner of the business.
On linked in he was a Staff Accountant at KPMG only 10 years ago. How does some guy who was working at Butterfield as a fund accountant/supervisor jump into a directorship role at DMS? What made him so special? He’s Canadian?? Did he even know what he was doing? Did he do anything other than laugh it up?
There is too much of this in Cayman. Somehow we are led to believe that some junior people with bugger all experience know how to run a bank and trust and become Managing Director. Its a joke. They should be employing Caymanians into these roles as a lot of people come to this island with no experience and find themselves elevated with no talent or skills other than drinking and the right passport and spinning a story. How do auditors become senior fund accountants? How do Senior fund accountant become Directors? Time and again we see these failures elsewhere somehow rise to these positions.
I can not believe this racist, bigoted personal attack on a man who is a kind, caring, intelligent man and great Caymanian father.
Regardless of what he is alleged to have done, it is inconceivable that CNS would allow this sort of personal attack to be scripted on its web site, I suspect that the ‘poster’ is either another DMS employee trying to score some sort of personal points, or someone with a massive chip on their shoulder. Either way you should be ashamed of your mouth, it’s these sort of comments that lead to racist and religious hatred, you are no better than the Taliban.
2:51, you should do a little research before spewing racist garbage. Perhaps looking into the difference between a fund accountant and an auditor might be a start.