An entity in the collapsed Stenn group has alleged it was sold fake invoices by UK trade finance provider Jardine Norton and is seeking almost £30mn in restitution. Jardine Norton has denied the claims and said it is preparing a counterclaim.
Irish company Stenn Direct Funding DAC (SDF) alleges in a High Court claim made public on July 24 that it discovered 13 invoices “were not genuine documents” and said “it is properly to be inferred [they] were deliberately created or procured” by Jardine Norton.
SDF’s allegations have not yet been tested in court. Jardine Norton said in a statement to GTR it “vigorously disputes the claim being advanced by Stenn Direct Funding, three years after the events concerned. We are preparing a detailed defence and are actively progressing our own claim against Stenn.”
Cardiff-headquartered Jardine Norton works with financial institutions, businesses and public bodies to provide debt funding for trade, according to its website.
Once a major provider of trade finance, UK-headquartered Stenn collapsed in late 2024 owing some US$1bn to creditors, mainly banks that funded the firm’s purchases of receivables ostensibly payable by blue-chip companies. However, many of those companies have denied having any relationship with Stenn’s clients, Bloomberg reported last year.
SDF is a securitisation vehicle through which financial institutions funded some of Stenn’s financing activity and is not under the control of Stenn’s administrators.
SDF said in the court document that Stenn struck a deal in early 2021 to buy receivables from Jardine Norton, which had purchased them from its own clients.
Among the receivables were around £6mn worth of invoices “purportedly” bought from Welsh tool distributor Genpower Ltd, SDF said in the claim. But SDF alleges the receivables “did not exist” and that Genpower confirmed the invoices were not real.
“The Genpower invoices are obviously false documents, given their appearance is not consistent with genuine invoices used by Genpower and, in particular, that they re-use invoice numbers used on genuine invoices which related to different transactions and involved different parties and concerned different, far lower sums,” SDF said in the claim.
SDF further alleges that purported debtors under the receivables, including Amazon, had neither acknowledged nor paid the invoices.
Genpower had “provided Jardine with a copy of the template it used for its invoices”, SDF said. Genpower did not respond to a request for comment.
SDF said Jardine Norton’s alleged misrepresentations about the Genpower receivables amounted to a wider breach of the receivables purchase deal between the two, and is asking the court to find Jardine Norton liable for a further £17.9mn in restitution or damages.
Alternatively, it is seeking £29.4mn from Jardine Norton directors Ceri Rees and Paul Clark, who signed personal guarantees as part of the receivables purchase agreement.
Jardine Norton said SDF’s claim “contains numerous inconsistencies including unexplained changes in the sums claimed, contradictory schedules, missing records and significant gaps in the relevant periods”.
“Stenn has failed to provide a clear and coherent account of what it collected and how those collections were accounted for.”
The firm also said “it is extraordinary that the representatives of a failed finance company should now seek to pursue Jardine Norton on the basis of such a misconceived claim”.
His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the UK tax authority, filed a winding-up petition against Jardine Norton in June, court records show. The company told GTR the petition was withdrawn.
Jardine Norton filed a High Court claim against Genpower in 2025, but SDF said it was discontinued.
When HSBC, one of Stenn’s main lenders, triggered the company’s winding up, US$119mn of seller invoices remained payable to SDF, administrators have previously said.
The administrators, Interpath, said in June they have “made substantial progress” collecting the balances owed to the group, mainly via SDF and a second, larger securitisation vehicle.
