The case centres around employees of FNZ, the $20bn wealthtech unicorn, who are suing the company - and individual FNZ board members from firms including Motive Partners and Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management - for allegedly self-dealing preference shares and warrants back to the firms they work for (and LPs including Temasek, CDPQ and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board) at bargain prices, thereby diluting the employees’ holding to the tune of $4.6bn. In August, the FNZ legal team filed an injunction to halt one route the shareholders were taking - via a trustee entity in the Caymans which holds employee equity. Later that month, the NZ High Court threw out a series of FNZ’s technical objections to the case being heard, which the judge described as “falling like snow” on the Registry. The plaintiffs have retained an UK PR consultancy to communicate their viewpoint. According to a press release from the consultancy acting on behalf of the employee shareholders: "For months, FNZ has tried every tactic to avoid accountability and tie this case up in legal minutia. The court’s decision to set a hearing date, and overrule FNZ’s attempt to have the case stayed, reaffirms FNZ attempts to kill the case have all failed." Earlier this month FNZ raised $650 million in new equity funding from its institutional shareholders, the second such cash injection that the firm has received this year. The employee spokesperson continues: “It is understandable that new management are now reverting to the strategy of the leadership they replaced. However, the $1.5 billion splurged in less than a year on FNZ’s bridge-to-nowhere means yet another capital raise, which in end effect is being funded by the final elimination of any residual value in employee’s stake in the firm. We hardly think that’s accidental. “Today the new management has little progress to show for this capital raise. The much-anticipated expansion into the US market has faltered, and major re-platforming initiatives have faced significant delays, the opposite of what you’d expect for $1.5 billion in investment. “Over the past year, FNZ has undergone significant upheaval at the top, with a wave of senior management departures - including its founder and CEO of 20 plus years and all the regional CEOs - making way for new leaders who are mostly part of the Motive Partners team, but with almost no relevant experience. As a result, rather than revitalising the company, these changes have coincided with a sharp downturn in business performance, the first in its 22-year history of continuous results."

Finextra has reached out to FNZ PR for comment. None was provided at the time of publication.

Earlier this week, FNZ announced the appointment of Dame Alison Rose, formerly CEO at NatWest Group, as the Chair of FNZ (UK) Ltd.  The May hearing represents a critical advance in a battle that could redefine corporate governance standards, not just in New Zealand but around the world, as well as the ways private equity and sovereign wealth funds operate and invest in businesses.