Judge Robert Miles says former chief Michael Thomson and four others knowingly participated in fraud

Investment firm London Capital & Finance (LCF), whose failure in 2019 triggered one of Britain’s biggest retail investment scandals, operated as a Ponzi scheme, a London judge ruled on Thursday.

The high court said former chief executive Michael Thomson and four others had knowingly participated in the fraud, misled investors and misappropriated assets in a ruling welcomed by LCF’s joint administrators, which brought the case.