Norton Pension Fraud Victims Finally Get £9.4m in Compensation
The 200+ people duped into handing over pension pots to Stuart Garner's Norton Company are finally getting money back in their accounts
The Norton Pension scandal finally seems to be drawing to a close. The Guardian reported back in March that The Fraud Compensation Fund had paid £9.4 million to collapsed schemes that went crashed when Norton went belly-up in 2020, but the money hasn't been accessible until now, with trustee Dalriada busy calculating how much was to go to each victim.
The Guardian spoke to several victims, including 59-year-old Billy Wallace, who received £33,000 into a newly created account, although without the fraud having occurred, he estimates the pension fund would have been worth up to £60,000.
The Norton V4CR is one of the models that came about under TVS ownership
He'll need to wait several weeks until being able to withdraw the money. “I’ve seen the printout, so I know it’s there...but we have been through that much, until I see it in my own bank account that’s when I’ll believe it,” he told the publication.
Those affected by the fraud gave Norton access to their pension pots, which Stuart Garner then invested directly back into the company via three pension schemes. Garner, the then owner and CEO of Norton, was originally told to pay back the money himself, thought to be around £14 million along with a separate payment of £180,000. However, not long after this, he filed for bankruptcy. That left the Fraud Compensation Fund as the only viable means to rectify the situation for those affected.
Today Norton is a very different company to the one we knew under Garner’s ownership, with TVS Motor swooping in to buy the brand in 2020. Since then it has invested heavily in the company, building a state-of-the-art production facility in Solihull and has focused on R&D to help fix the issues found with the existing range of Norton models that TVS inherited from the time of Garner’s ownership.
Two of the bikes that have benefitted from this estimated £100 million investment are the re-designed V4SV, and the 961 Commando, as well as the recently announced V4CR cafe racer. The investment in the brand is thought to have created between 250 and 300 new jobs in the west midlands.
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2022 Norton V4SV Ridden on Track
Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
