The Quickshift
- The Norton Motorcycles pensions fund scandal defrauded over 200 UK pensioners in 2012 and 2013
- Under the leadership of businessman Stuart Garner, Norton entered administration (similar to US bankruptcy) in 2020, and Garner was ordered to pay over £14m to victims.
- Garner then declared bankruptcy, leaving the UK Fraud Compensation Fund to pick up the ball and see if the victims qualified
- In 2024, the UK Fraud Compensation Fund has now paid around £9.4m to the surviving victims and their families (some victims have passed away since the fraud occurred)
For a number of reasons, no one likes to see our elders get ripped off.
Whether it's your general sense of right and wrong, or you think to yourself about how it could so easily happen to your loved ones or even yourself down the line, it tends to hit in a very particular way.
All of these are reasons that the Norton pensions scandal was a special brand of disturbing. As a brief overview/refresher, UK pensioners invested their life savings into what they thought were legitimate pension funds in 2012 and 2013, but which later turned out to be scams involving storied British company Norton Motorcycles. Money was funneled through the company and used to fund lavish lifestyles and personal expenses, in a tale practically as old as time.
During this period, the company was run by businessman Stuart Garner, who was ordered in 2020 by the UK Pensions Ombudsman to pay around £14m (including interest) to the victims, along with an additional £180,000 to 30 of the 200-plus complainants for "exceptional maladministration causing injustice," according to the Guardian.
Hands up if you had Garner declaring bankruptcy shortly after that judgment on your bingo card because that's exactly what happened. Would the fraud victims affected by the Norton pensions scandal ever see a single coin?
Thankfully, circumstances like these are why the UK has a Fraud Compensation Fund. In March 2024, the Fraud Compensation Fund announced that not only were the Norton victims eligible for compensation, but that it also hoped to have their payments figured out and administered by the end of 2024.
Fast forward to August, and the FCF has now paid £9.4m into accounts for the Norton fraud victims. According to the Guardian, which spoke to several members of the Norton pension fund victims contingent, payments were officially received last week.
One pensioner reported receiving £33,000 (about US $42,871) in their fund, although he estimates that it should have been closer to £60,000 (about US $77,947) with interest if it had been allowed to appreciate over the past 12 years. Which it would have done, if the Norton scheme had been above-board.
Still, £33,000 is better than £0, which is likely what he would have received if it wasn't for the Fraud Compensation Fund.
The Garner-helmed iteration of Norton Motorcycles entered administration in 2020, and was bought out of insolvency later that year by TVS Motors. It has since opened a new factory in the west Midlands, and remains under completely different ownership and administration.
