SFO

A group of Harlequin Property investors is seeking to agree a process with the company to facilitate the review of all investments through self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) or those which have utilised a re-mortgage.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has received a "small number" of complaints related to troubled overseas property sales agent Harlequin Property - though this could rise if a group of investors gets its way.

Harlequin Management Services (South East), which trades as Harlequin Property, has filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators at the High Court of Justice.

A survey of 150 investors in properties sold by overseas property agent Harlequin, which is at the centre of a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation, suggests as many as 40% of them have asked for their money back - but only two have received it.

A BBC producer who was working on a Panorama programme about troubled overseas property agent Harlequin Property has left the corporation as it emerged that Harlequin is to take an allegation of bribery against him to the police.

Harlequin Property, the UK-based overseas property sales agent that is at the centre of a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation, has lost its second auditor in under three years.

Regulators have fined companies and top bosses about £1bn for fraudulent activities since 2007, a report due out today has found.

Some agents selling Harlequin properties before March 2009 misled investors into thinking that their investment money would be held securely in ring-fenced accounts.

TailorMade, a UK distributor of investments in Harlequin Property, has said it stopped taking new money into the overseas property scheme in January following a Financial Services Authority (FSA) alert about Harlequin.

Harlequin Property, a UK-based overseas property sales agent that is not regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), has agreed a "substantial" out of court settlement with a number of investors who wanted their money back.