The founder of Marvelstone Group is caught up in legal disputes for allegedly failing to pay promised returns to investors. The fintech also stayed mum about plans after dissolving Lattice80 U.K.
Joe Cho Seunghyun, the founder and chairman of Marvelstone Group, is being sued by investors in South Korea for allegedly breaching contracts to pay promised returns to its investors.
Marvelstone Group said that the claims are untrue, adding that «there are disputes which are currently being handled by the solicitors of the various parties in Seoul,» according to a report in the «Business Times» (behind paywall).
Missed Payments
Based on a notarized contract signed off by Cho, Marvelstone Partners had guaranteed one Korean investor – Chun Yong Boem – a 33 percent interest per annum on the 225.66 million won he invested. The funds were designated to go into another project that was later listed and the contract also guaranteed a profit to exit. Chun claims that his guaranteed return due end-March last year never arrived.
Aside from Chun, a lawyer representing six Korean investors have also sent a letter to Cho to ask why redemptions from a separate fund sold by Marvelstone had been delayed for at least one year and a half. These investors claimed in their legal demand that the fund, which listed Cho and his wife Gina Heng as directors, was sold to them as a stable financial product. Business Times had also found a facebook group with over 100 members who claim to be victims of Cho and revealed that lawsuits have been launched.
Lawsuit in Singapore
As Marvelstone faces questions about whether they had deployed funds arising from investments in South Korea for expansion into Singapore, it is also being sued by Hong Leong Holdings for reneging on a license agreement for its Singapore fintech hub, Lattice80. The Singapore property group charged that Cho and the fintech group failed to deposit revenue receipts that should have gone into designated bank accounts.
In March 2018, Marvelstone's Lattice80 said it would move the fintech hub's global headquarters from Singapore (where it was first established in 2016) to London. The U.K. companies registry shows that a Lattice80 U.K. was dissolved in January this year, with the first notice of a compulsory strike-off made in October 2018.
Silent About Future Plans
In the two years of being a Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC), Marvelstone's fund company Marvelstone Capital reported no assets under management from investors, according to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
When asked for updates on future plans by local media, Marvelstone Group responded that it is not obliged to disclose their business plans. Amid repeated questions from the media, Marvelstone Group recently changed its website to a blank page with only its logo on it.
