Another judicial protest against Bank of Valletta has been filed by 170 investors over a property fund once valued at €84 million but now worth only €30 million.

The 170 investors are shareholders in La Valette multi-manager property fund, a sub-fund of La Valette Funds Sicav plc. The fund was managed by Valletta Fund Management, owned by Bank of Valletta and Insight.

The investors claimed that VFM in its capacity as director and manager of the sicav, significantly failed to exercise the skill and diligence required of it in the selection of the investments of the fund and in its subsequent monitoring.

The failings were among the main reasons for the very substantial damages suffered by the investors, independently of any possible negative trend in the property market.

The affected investments included a number in the Belgravia Funds, made at a time when there were sufficient indicators to show that it was inappropriate to entrust the claimants investments in the fund with Belgravia.

In its capacity as custodian, BoV was specifically responsible to ensure that the investment restrictions of the fund were observed, the investors said.

These included the restriction by which “the limit on the level of gearing that the fund’s underlying real estate property funds may be exposed to is of a maximum of 100 per cent of their respective net assets”.

A similar protest against the bank had been filed by 72 investors last month.