Claims management company RGL Management expects claims over the collapsed fund to exceed £200m, with the number of people suing the investment platform using the firm almost doubling in the past two years.
According to RGL Management, the number of people taking part in its claim stood at 2,750 two years ago, but numbers have now increased to more than 5,000. The average individual claim is about £20,000.
Aggrieved investors claim that Hargreaves Lansdown was still promoting the fund even when it was aware of its problems.
Fund manager Neil Woodford was forced to suspend his flagship fund – Woodford Equity Income Fund (WEIF) – on 3 June 2019 as he couldn’t meet a surge in redemption requests following a period of poor performance.
In October 2019, the fund’s administrators confirmed the £3bn fund would be wound up, with cash returned to investors “as soon as possible”.
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About 300,000 people had invested in the fund, including 130,000 through Hargreaves Lansdown.
RGL filed an initial claim in the High Court against Hargreaves Lansdown in London in October 2022. The claims management firm is one of several companies making a claim on behalf of investors who lost their savings deposited in the fund.
The firm said it was processing further claims and estimated that the number of claimants could reach 10,000.
Michael Green, director of RGL, said: “Adding thousands more claimants today to the RGL Group action represents another step closer to holding Hargreaves Lansdown to account for its conduct in relation to the WEIF.”
Investors are seeking to recoup their capital losses, plus damages for the lost opportunity of investing in alternative investments that would have generated positive returns.
Last year, the administrator of the failed Woodford fund, Link Fund Solutions, agreed to pay £235m to help regulators to compensate more than 300,000 customers with payments of about £185.7m, and these were made to customers in March.
