Subject: Legal Assistance Needed for MTI Liquidation Lawsuit

Dear Attorney

I hope this message finds you well. I am reaching out to seek your legal advice regarding a lawsuit filed against me by MTI Liquidation. They are demanding that I repay the money I invested on their platform, alleging that I created multiple accounts over which I had full control. I would like to provide some context to clarify the situation:

Account Creation: I created accounts for my wife and parents, as they were unfamiliar with the process and needed assistance.Funds Transfer: We transferred funds between these accounts primarily to take advantage of the 10% referral bonus MTI offered. Specifically, I initially invested R100,000 in my own account, earned R10,000, and then transferred the R110,000 to my wife’s account. From there, we transferred R120,000 to my parents' accounts following the same rationale.Current Status of Funds: Ultimately, all the funds remained in my father's account. We did not withdraw any money from the MTI platform at any point; thus, we never benefitted financially from these transfers outside the MTI system.Allegations by MTI: MTI is now asking us to repay the funds for each account, although it was the same money being moved from one account to another, and no illegal accounts were created.

I believe there may be a misunderstanding, particularly regarding the multiple accounts being linked to the same bank account and the subsequent internal transfers within the MTI platform.

Could you please provide advice on how to address these allegations and what steps I should take next? Your assistance in resolving this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to your guidance.

Best regards

Hi there and thank you for your question,

I am a practicing attorney based in South Africa and I will assist you with your question. Please feel free to ask as many follow up questions in order to clarify your question. If you have a new question, you must please open a new thread.

Please keep in mind that our discussions is for general information purposes only. Our engagement on this website does not create an attorney-client relationship. 

I was actually helping another customer (Mr A) about 3 weeks ago who had done something very similar to you. He had made an initial investment with MTI and then he withdrew the money out and reinvested it under the wife's name (Mrs A) in order to get the referral bonus. About a week later, he withdrew it from Mrs A's account, and reinvested it under his son's name (Mr B), again for the referral. Another week later, he withdrew it from Mr B's account, and reinvested it under his daughter's name (Mrs C), again for the referral. Eventually, he withdrew the money from Mrs C's account and walked away with the original investment plus the referral bonuses and the profits. 

Now, what MTI wants is for Mr A, Mrs A, Mr B, and Mrs C, to EACH pay back the amount which was drawn out of each of their accounts, and then for them to put in a claim for the amount which was initially deposited into their accounts. 

Now I'm sure that you will understand that there was only (in reality) 1 initial amount, which was just moved around. But because the money was actually withdrawn from the account, and then re-invested, MTI are technically correct with their allegations and their demands. 

Now what you've explained it a little similar to this, except that there was no real withdrawal of funds, but rather some sort of transfer. Now my concern is that in terms of MTI's T&C, a transfer of funds is seen as a withdrawal of funds from the first account and a deposit of funds into the second account. This is how a bank would see it. A debit and a credit. Not a journal entry. 

I think that you have got a bit of a problem here, if I'm honest with you, because I am of the view that a transfer of the funds should be seen as a withdrawal from your account. If that's correct, then you would need to do the same thing as Mr A, Mrs A, Mr B, and Mrs C as I explained above. 

If you each receive a summons, I think that you need to immediately take it to a lawyer to assist you in defending the summons, and then to see if you can negotiate a deal with the MTI liquidators on the basis that one of you will repay the money, and the others will all foregoe their claims. If they won't accept that proposal, then you will need to take the defence further in court to see what sort of outcome you receive from the judge. 

Just remember, that a court case is expensive, so the liquidators are not going to spend R500k fighting you in court for R100k. So there is no real advantage to fighting you in court. They would rather settle with you for the R100k, but because the litigation is not worth it, they will most likely be forced to accept a slightly lesser settlement amount. 

I'm just using these figures as examples.