Sunday 15 March 2020

Members' Voluntary Liquidation (Night's Black Agents)

You may have seen recent news articles about Gate Ventures, a British entertainment investment company that, its Chinese investors allege, ripped off its shareholders while at the same time making massive loans to celebrity backer Sarah Ferguson, (aka Fergie, aka Duchess of York) and handing out multimillion pound freebies to its former chair, Hong Kong businessman Doctor Johnny Hon. The company's investors put in over £24 million between them; the company now has less than  £5 million left, and can't afford to pay its lawyers, who recently quit. The company's current chair, Lord Grade, is now personally fighting the court case being brought by angry investors. Fergie and the Doctor jumped ship in 2019 and 2017 respectively. 

The Brits among you may remember that this isn't Fergie's first brush with financial unpleasantness. She was stung by a News of the World reporter back in 2010, in a cash-for-access exposé. There was loose talk about bankruptcy at about the same time, but Jeffrey Epstein, (yes, it is he), saved her with a loan. Her husband had an altogether different relationship with Epstein.

Johnny Hon, meanwhile, is doing very well for himself. The motto on his coat of arms, granted in 2018, is Ambition, Perseverance, Success. Apparently you can get that sort of thing from the Lyon Court if you own property in Scotland and are prepared to pay a fee. One wonders if Fergie lent a hand.

You may be wondering what members' voluntary liquidation is. In brief: if you are a company and want to die, you have to be wound-up. It's not unlike the reading of the will in a detective novel, except this time all the weeping relatives are actually weeping creditors. Their grief is none the less real, I'm sure. The assets of the company are then disposed of, in an exercise that can be prolonged or brief, depending on how much the company has in the bank and how angry the weeping creditors are. The longer it lasts the less cash there will be for the members, as whatever the company had left after paying its debts will be spent on admin and legal fees.

In a members' voluntary, all the members - the shareholders - have to agree that the winding-up should take place. In this instance, the shareholders were offered a carrot. They were told that if they agreed, the chair would be able to dispose of what was left of the company at a good price, thus allowing the shareholders to take home more money. If they had agreed, the winding-up process would be much easier.

They did not. One investor in particular, Zheng Youngxiong, aka Quentin, wants to know what happened to all those loans and freebies. His fellow investors, many of whom were sucked in by celebrity-studded investment drives held in Macau, are just as angry.

You have to wonder how Lord Grade thought he'd get away with members voluntary, particularly since the rats leaving the ship ought to have been a clear sign that she was holed beneath the waterline and the pumps were shagged. Or to put it in current terms, when the founders of the company vest their stock options and take long vacations in the fabled land of Anywhere But Here, now is the time to update your CV.

Now, what's in a McGuffin?


Video sourced from Overly Sarcastic Productions, highly recommended for lovers of tropes and history. Sometimes both at the same time.

When Hitchcock was still above ground, McGuffins were often plans - of the fort, the bomb, the experimental aircraft, whatever. The spies want it, so it's important. In the Cold War it made perfect sense that McGuffins were tools of war. In the modern world of fractured loyalties it's all about the dolla, dolla bills, so financial records make perfect McGuffins. They might be Worthless (my God! someone wiped the hard drive!), Tactical or Walking. In this instance someone like Quentin would be the Walking McGuffin, the only living person who really knows where the financial records are buried. It's the agents' job to make sure he lives long enough to testify.

The great thing about a financial scam is that it gives the Director an excuse for having scenes in smoke-filled rooms, casinos, or parking garages, where the agents try to flip an informant. Scenes without gunfights, very Dust plus a hint of Mirror, with looming dread of what might come. After all, if you follow the money, you don't know where it will take you.  

With all that in mind:

Members' Voluntary Liquidation

The agents are hired by a third party to go to Macau and meet with Cindy Cho, a financial expert and professional investor, who according to rumor is the whistleblower in a major scandal that's about to hit the City. Cindy is a significant investor in a gaming, gambling and entertainment mutual fund run by a London-based LLC, Eden Soul. The company's face and CEO is [insert celebrity here - or if playing the Dracula Dossier, insert Legacy], but according to City gossip the CEO's backed by some fairly dangerous characters. The City thinks it's a scam run out of Saudi Arabia to launder money, but the agents may wonder if the Conspiracy's involved.

Eden Soul is on the rocks and wants to wind up its affairs. The CEO's appealing to the shareholders in an attempt to get the company wound up without public fuss. Cindy Cho bought Eden Soul stock specifically so she would have a voice in company business; she represents a bloc of Chinese investors who bought into the mutual fund, since its business is gambling and Macau's a gambling town.  In the process she learned a lot more about Eden Soul than she ever wanted to. She knows where the money went, what it bought, and who benefited. She's making a stink, and if she and her notes ever see the inside of a courtroom it will be bad times for Eden Soul and its CEO, never mind those mysterious backers.

The agents must make sure she does have her day in court. If she doesn't live long enough, they have to get her notes to the press, or the financial regulator.

But, the agents may justly wonder, who is this third party who hired us to get it done?
  • The Cushing Protocol. The third party is a well-heeled vampire hunter, possibly backed by the Vatican. The vampire hunter suspects, rightly, that Eden Soul is a machine designed by the Conspiracy to part suckers from their money so it can be spent on Conspiracy projects. The CEO is a hapless pawn, with minimal knowledge of Conspiracy affairs but a healthy regard for their own skin.  
  •  The Hellsing Sanction. The third party is a Conspiracy puppet. The Conspiracy wants Cho silenced and the agents are Judas Goats whose purpose is to deliver Cho to them on a silver platter. The CEO is neck-deep in Conspiracy dealings but wants out, and the CEO knows the truth about the third party. The agents might find the CEO is an unexpected ally, if they offer some kind of deal.
  •  The Hades Directive. The third party is a wealthy investor who knows nothing about the Conspiracy but thinks that Cho's the real deal, who can help the investor stick it to Eden Soul and its sneaky CEO. The problem with that plan is Cho's actually a plant, designed to draw the third party out into the open. Then the Conspiracy can deal with the pesky investor once and for all.
Finally, the McGuffin: 
  •  Cho and her photographic memory. Treat as Civilian with effective 3 point pools in Accountancy and Bureaucracy, no self-defense skills whatsoever, Hit Threshold 3, Health 1. Allergies, you know …
  •  Cho's laptop/external hard drive. Of course it's encrypted. The question is, who encrypted it? If it was Chinese Military Intelligence, then it's probably as well protected as any electronic device can be, with extra spicy viruses waiting to snap the trap shut. If Cho did it, the encryption is basic stuff bought from a civilian vendor. If it was the Triads, then chances are good the drive itself is bogus and the McGuffin worthless; the Triads wouldn't leave anything like that hanging around for ordinary people to look at. Or maybe their crypto guy screwed up and wiped the drive when trying to protect it.
  •  Cho's notes. She doesn't believe in electronic devices. Those things can be hacked. Besides, she thinks better on paper. Yes, those are coffee stains. Yes, they are heavily annotated in her own personal shorthand. Why yes. they are scattered across several different journals so they can be easily separated and carried off by mischievous thieves, spies, or vampires. Why do you ask? 
Enjoy!

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