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Investors file two lawsuits against Bar Works

Posted on 28 June 201728 June 2017

Since January 2017, REDD-Monitor has written a series of posts about Renwick Haddow’s latest investment scheme, Bar Works, a New York-based co-working startup company. Last week, Law360 reported that Bar Works “is now the subject of at least two lawsuits from investors who call it a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme”.

On 16 June 2017, a group of Chinese investors filed a complaint in New York state court. They say they invested US$3 million in Bar Works.

On 21 June 2017, the Plentium Capital Group Corporation filed a complaint in Florida federal court. In the complaint, Plentium estimates that between 250 and 1,000 investors have invested at least US$25 million in Bar Works. Plentium invested US$500,000 in Bar Works.

Hiding Haddow

Both law suits accuse Bar Works of hiding the involvement of Renwick Haddow in the investment scheme. Haddow previously ran the Capital Alternatives network of scam companies. The UK Financial Conduct Authority has taken Capital Alternatives and Haddow to the High Court in London. The High Court ruled that the company was illegally running an unregulated collective investment scheme. This ruling was upheld in the Supreme Court.

In a statement about Capital Alternatives, the FCA states that,

We are now proceeding to deal with remaining aspects of the case back in the High Court, including the issue of misleading statements which we allege were made to investors in relation to these schemes.

The trial will take place in July 2017.

Haddow is Black

Someone calling themselves Jonathan Black was supposedly the CEO of Bar Works. Black signed contracts with investors in Bar Works. Black told The Real Deal website that Haddow was only a consultant.

The Real Deal’s Konrad Putzier pointed out that Jonathan Black’s LinkedIn page featured a photograph of someone else. And when Black registered the website barworks.us, he gave Haddow’s email address. Within weeks of The Real Deal publishing its article about Bar Works, Jonathan Black’s name was replaced by that of Frank Kinard on Bar Works’ company documents.

Kinard resigned as CEO of Bar Works in May 2017.

Kinard told Law360 that he has been interviewed by the FBI regarding Bar Works.

In an article on Crain’s, a New York business website, Kinard is quoted as saying that, “Black was a fake identity used by Haddow”.

In its legal complaint Plentium describes Jonathan Black as “a fictitious person created to conceal the involvement of Haddow”.

Pod Works: Bar Works in the UK

In April 2016, the Daily Mail interviewed Jonathan Black about Bar Works’ plans to launch a company called Pod Works in the UK. This harebrained scheme involved using Britain’s red phone boxes as mini-work stations. Black claimed to have bought 14 phone boxes – the first pods were supposed to open by July 2016.

Pod Works asks, “Why sit in a noisy, public coffee shop when you can sit in one of our secure Pods and truly focus on your work?”

Put another way, why stand (because there’s no chair) in a cramped phone box to do some work, rather than sitting in comfort in the nearest coffee bar?

I know which I’d prefer. Bear in mind that the photograph below is with the door open.

The Daily Mail described Black as “a former venture capital firm boss from London who moved to New York in 2013”. Black said,

“Bar Works started in October last year but I had the idea more than ten years ago.

“I ran a venture capital firm and had experience of the pub trade. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have all these firms under one roof? Pubs in the UK have rooms upstairs, we could use those.’

“But landlords got greedy and charged higher rents, so the model didn’t work at that time.

“I came across a closed down bar in New York.

“It took a while for people to grasp the idea, but we have three now and 15 per cent of trade is from people walking past.”

Bar Works’ investment scheme falls apart

The Chinese investors’ lawsuit accuses Bar Works of running a Ponzi scheme. Bar Works paid returns to its existing investors from new investors in Bar Works, “rather than from profit earned through legitimate investments or business activities”.

The lawsuit also accuses Bar Works of selling more co-working desk spaces than existed, and accuses Bar Works sold desk spaces in locations that were never opened.

Tribeca Citizen reports that “the new Bar Works at 95 Chambers was open as of yesterday” (i.e. 26 June 2017), but notes that Bar Works is subletting space to Bulletproof Coffee, Pure Green juice bar, and Beyond the Bar fitness studio. Tribeca Citizen adds that “the co-working space downstairs is tiny”.

For his article on Crain’s about the collapse of Bar Works, journalist Daniel Geiger visited two of Bar Works’ properties in New York. He found a padlock on Bar Works’ 47 West 39th Street address and wrote that West 46th was “dark and empty”. No one at Bar Works answered his phone calls.

Alexander Brodsky, the landlord of a planned Bar Works address told Crain’s that construction work had stopped and Bar Works hadn’t paid any rent for two months. Brodsky’s firm, the Brodsky Organization, has started eviction proceedings against Bar Works.
 

14 thoughts on “Investors file two lawsuits against Bar Works”

  1. marksie says:
    28 June 2017 at 10:07 pm

    As mentioned on the other blog, Beyond the Bar fitness studio is a Renwick Haddow operation. See this entry in the State of New York Business and Corporate Entity Database.

    Selected Entity Name: BEYOND THE BAR FITNESS LLC
    Selected Entity Status Information
    Current Entity Name: BEYOND THE BAR FITNESS LLC
    DOS ID #: 4997256
    Initial DOS Filing Date: AUGUST 22, 2016
    County: NEW YORK
    Jurisdiction: NEW YORK
    Entity Type: DOMESTIC LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY
    Current Entity Status: ACTIVE

    Selected Entity Address Information
    DOS Process (Address to which DOS will mail process if accepted on behalf of the entity)
    RENWICK HADDOW
    C/O BAR WORKS CHAMBERS ST. INC
    95 CHAMBERS STREET, UNIT 1B
    NEW YORK, NEW YORK, 10007

  2. tresmiami says:
    29 June 2017 at 1:47 pm

    Hi, like most people here I have been scammed by BW. I was wondering if someone here could help me understand how these parallel litigations work.
    Is it basically a race between these 2 (potentially more in the future) lawsuits to get to Haddow first? Shouldn’t these 2 and any other in the future be merged? Not sure how the law works in the US but doesnt make much sense.
    Additionally, do you know if possible to join one of these claims? Or should investors not covered in these 2 lawsuits file new ones? Again it does not make much sense to have many litigations running at the same time.
    Sorry for my lack of knowledge of US law, but Im trying to assess which is the best way forward for me.
    Thanks.

  3. Chris Lang says:
    30 June 2017 at 11:33 pm

    @marksie – Thanks for this. Incidentally, there’s an update on the Tribeca Citizen website:

    An update on Tuesday’s “In the News” item about the Bar Works co-working company: The Bar Works signage has been removed from 95 Chambers, and Pure Green founder Ross Franklin says that his juice/smoothie company—which is leasing space there from the landlord, not subletting from Bar Works, and is unaffiliated with Bar Works—is staying. (Same presumably goes for Bulletproof Coffee and Beyond the Bar.)

  4. Sheila Smith says:
    13 July 2017 at 10:57 pm

    I have also been scammed by BW all was going well until April this year, we were getting a regular income every month then it suddenly stopped in April. Is there anything we can do to get at least some of our money back.

  5. Chris Lang says:
    14 July 2017 at 10:27 am

    @Sheila Smith – There’s a long discussion about what people scammed by Bar Works can do following this post:

    Bar Works: The return of Renwick Haddow

  6. Ivo says:
    16 July 2017 at 3:15 pm

    Good day.I am investor in Bar works.Please advise me do I need to take a lawyer firm or CEO complain can be enought.My mail is [email protected]
    I am not american citizen.
    Thanks

  7. Chris Lang says:
    16 July 2017 at 3:53 pm

    @Ivo – There’s a long discussion about what people scammed by Bar Works can do following this post:

    Bar Works: The return of Renwick Haddow

  8. narciso says:
    28 July 2017 at 7:59 am

    I have also been scammed by BW we did some cleaning at west Hollywood, CA we never got paid for the services.can someone tell me what is going on please

  9. Anne marie Simpson says:
    28 July 2017 at 7:59 pm

    Great news! Haddow has been arrested near Rabat in Morrocco via Interpol, trying to get him extradited back to US.

  10. Anne marie says:
    28 July 2017 at 8:01 pm

    Thanks Simon for posting the information on here.

  11. Anne marie says:
    29 July 2017 at 9:49 pm

    Haddow WAS arrested this week in Tangiers and he is in Sale prison near Rabat, I have checked every French morrocan tabloid and they all confirm this. I have seen a photo of another suspect who was beaten by the police in relation to a Bitcoin fraud but this isn’t Haddow.

  12. Teflon Don says:
    31 July 2017 at 2:15 am

    Interesting to read this. I am based in London and used the Pod Works telephone boxes. Did not appear to have many users but did find them useful (they had a stool in which you could sit) and had a level of privacy better than a cafe. Liaised with the UK management a couple of times and they were helpful. Currently website down and site no longer working however.

  13. Teflon Don says:
    31 July 2017 at 2:37 am

    I would add that I did not lose any money as only subscribed for a couple of months..

  14. Annie says:
    24 September 2017 at 2:43 pm

    Do we wait to see if Haddow is sent back to US or UK from his prison cell in Sal in Morrocco or will he wriggle out of it and get bail with our money and stay there and live a priviledged life?

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