DPF points to the legal advice from Key’s lawyers here.
The key paragraph appears to be no. 9.
Mr Hodgson’s conclusion is that you still have an interest in the shares he refers to in his letter as long as Whitechapel Limited remains the owner. However, the fact that a Companies’ Office search shows that Whitechapel Limited is registered as the owner of shares in other companies cannot of itself establish that they are shares in which you have an interest. The above analysis shows that you have no interest and have no influence or control over the shares.
Overall I think the letter misses the point (the one Hodgson has been making in public at least) – that the company holding the assets is visible to public searches thus because Key (supposedly) knew the company name he could know what he owned.
To me, the above strongly suggests that Whitechapel owns shares on behalf of other trusts, which would render such an accusation moot. But on second reading, I wonder why that’s not explicitly stated.
DPF calls this H-Fee MkII. I’m not convinced it’s completely without merit (As the H-Fee smears were) but it certainly shares the “long hours of research in order to produce a dubious character smear who’s biggest effect will be a backfire” characteristic of the previous attempt.
But the funniest thing is putting Hodgson at the front of a campaign about character…
Something should go here, maybe later. 