We have now received a copy of the official letter sent by Sarah Olney (Click here for Part 1 & Part 2) to the Charity Commission following our meeting with her. The letter asks that they escalate their investigation into the legal conflicts of interest between CTCF and AIFS's interlocked boards and the inappropriate actions taken by representatives of the former on behalf of the later to harm Richmond's financial viability while benifiting AIFS. Note the clear reference to provide unconditional support to Richmond in CTCF's charter, and the lack of reference to "the deserving underprivileged" as Stephen Rasch put it in the Times Higher Education.
This was forwarded directly to all CTCF trustees and senior AIFS executives yesterday as a reply to our letter sent on the 21st January (which we have still not been provided a direct reply too, despite comments in the Times Higher Education) and once again offered a proposal for a fair and equitable financial settlement, along with the justification for structuring it this way. This settlement would see Richmond given a legally binding multi-year cash injection to satisfy the OfS alongside ownership of a portion of it's occupied real estate to help secure viable long term institutional partnerships.
-----------------------------------------------
29th Jan 2020
Dear All (CTCF/AIFS),
Ref. - Escalation of the Charity Commission Investigation into AIFS/CTCF
We have yet to receive a reply to our email sent to you all on January 21st regarding the issues that have arisen in the past months relating to the future of Richmond, The American International University in London and the evidence of AIFS/CTCF’s role in this. It appears the response you instructed Penningtons Manches Cooper to send to Sarah Olney MP on January 10th was not satisfactory either as she has now written to the Charity Commission to escalate their investigation publicly (attached).
As you are aware this investigation is looking into a number of inappropriate issues raised, including but not limited to:
1) The independence of CTCF and its relationship with AIFS and the University, given that at least 9 out of the 14 CTCF trustees, and all 3 of the CTCF Bermuda directors are paid executives or affiliates of AIFS.
2) Evidence of representatives of the CTCF negotiating on behalf of AIFS and linking commercial contracts with charitable donations.
3) The role of AIFS and CTCF withholding, and/or delay in payment of charitable grant, commercial payments and reimbursements for H&S compliance in causing Richmond to be no longer viewed as financially viable, given that internal audits show clear evidence that Richmond was viable prior to CTCF and AIFS actions from July 2019.
4) The written instructions of the Chair of the CTCF Foundation for the resignation of the President and Vice Chancellor of Richmond as a condition for releasing emergency funding, after a whistleblowing complaint was filed with the Charity Commission on December 2nd.
Given this, we again feel the need to note that as charitable trustees and board members, you are personally, as well as collectively financially liable for any inappropriate actions unearthed by the Commission investigation (and any other agency investigations either side of the Atlantic), including those of you with no direct links to AIFS. This includes any future class action lawsuits by alumni, current students and staff/faculty should Richmond close or suffer continued reputable damage and which can be attributed to AIFS/CTCF from information currently in the public domain. At the very least there would be major reputational damage towards both AIFS’s trusted brand as a champion of international education and towards your own individual professional reputations.
In the spirit of the openness and willingness to facilitate alumni solutions for Richmond’s current situation as expressed by Stephen Rasch in his Times Higher Education quotation, would it be possible for us to see a copy of the AIFS/CTCF rebuttal filed against Lawrence AbeIn’s complaint with the Charity Commission? Given that the dispute is now within the public domain this shouldn’t be a problem. If the document is as “conclusive” as Stephen claims, there is nothing to fear in releasing it to us. Maybe it can conclusively answer our questions alongside those of Sarah Olney and the Charity Commission?
As we’ve noted before, we remain an alumni body that only wants to take whatever actions are needed to secure a prosperous future for this unique institution and the vision of your own founder Sir Cyril Taylor. After all, CTCF and AIFS only exist to further the legacy of Sir Cyril, wouldn’t you agree? We, therefore,will continue to leave no stone unturned and do everything we possibly can to prevent either Richmond’s unnecessary closure or continued reputational damage.
We urge you to consider our more than reasonable proposal for CTCF to agree to A) release a multi-year infusion of working capital to satisfy OfS guidelines and B) have AIFS directly donate the Queens Road and Kensington Campus real estate to Richmond, as a one-off severance transfer, in place of further CTCF charitable grants. This should more than fulfil Richmond's place as the primary beneficiary of CTCF and allow AIFS/CTCF to go on with your divergent objectives. The Queens Road real estate in particular has limited future use for AIFS/CTCF given the Methodist covenant placed on it, and AIFS could use the charitable donation as a tax write off.
It’s clear that CTCF and AIFS act as one entity, arguments to the contrary are just not credible, and there is precedent in AIFS issuing direct donations to Richmond as part of a coordinated framework with CTCF as outlined in a letter issued by Bill Gertz to Stephen on June 6th 2018. AIFS/CTCF are both the cause of the Richmond situation, and the key facilitators to it’s solution. No financial issues on the part of Richmond, beyond your own actions, impact Richmond’s financial viability, despite your claims so far.
Kind Regards,
On behalf of the passionate 20,000 Richmond alumni and many more thousands of AIFS Richmond alumni