Moores accused of bugging

Miami businessman makes astonishing 'racketeering' claims in $60m writ against Littlewoods family

Three senior members of the wealthy Moores family who own the Littlewoods football pools, mail order and stores empire are being sued in the US for $60m (pounds 37m) and accused of "mail fraud" and "racketeering" by a multi-millionaire British businessman. They are also accused of offering a bribe to bug the businessman.

Lady Grantchester, her brother John Moores and her son, James Suenson- Taylor, are the first named defendants in the suit brought by Miami resident Douglas Leese, who made his fortune putting together defence packages for governments around the world.

Others cited in the writ filed by Mr Leese in Miami's Southern District Court include Leonard Van Geest, the former chairman of Littlewoods, and Network Security Management, a private investigation agency owned by Hambros Bank.

Mr Leese alleges the defendants "stole and converted highly confidential records and business materials, surreptitiously removed highly sensitive and confidential information from used typewriter ribbons, illegally diverted telephone bills and records from a telephone company and contacted persons identified in those telephone records under false pretences ... to obtain and disseminate adverse information about the plaintiff and others".

In one instance, they allegedly "offered an employee at the plaintiff's son's place of business a tape recorder so that the defendants could secretly record the plaintiff's son and obtain confidential information concerning the plaintiff and others".

Their conduct, alleges Mr Leese, was part of a campaign to damage him and as such constituted, "the torts of conversion, invasion of privacy, tortious interference with contracts and business opportunities, and the crimes of mail and wire fraud". He claims the activity against him was a violation of the US Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, RICO.

The Moores family, troubled by the group's lacklustre performance, meet this week for what was already likely to be a difficult shareholders' meeting, or as the Moores call it, a "forum".

At the meeting, held in strict privacy, at least one shareholder is thought to be planning to ask searching questions of the company's management led by present chairman, James Ross.

Some members of the family, who own every share in Littlewoods, are frustrated at what they see as a lack of a clear strategy by Mr Ross, who last week sold 19 of its largest high street stores to Marks and Spencer. Littlewoods plans to rebrand its remaining stores and aim them at the over-45 age group - a tactic greeted with scorn by some shareholders.

Mr Leese's action concerns the attempt by Littlewoods to cut out the middleman in the sourcing of goods from the Far East. However, to give the company a foothold in the region it turned to Mr Leese and his son, Nicholas, both experienced Far East hands, for assistance.

The relationship turned sour after some of the Moores became suspicious that the Leeses and a handful of senior Littlewoods executives were profiting from the union. They asked Network Security to investigate and the result was a legal action in London against Mr Leese's company - followed by this much bigger counter-blast in Florida. Nicholas Leese is also planning to sue Littlewoods in Singapore after details of his alleged activities were passed to police there and he was arrested. He was charged last year by Singapore's Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau with taking bribes. A judge threw out the case last month.

David Jaroslawicz, Douglas Leese's lawyer in New York, said: "Everything we have said is supported by sworn testimony and documentation already obtained in litigation in Britain. We are very serious."

A spokeswoman for Littlewoods said: "The allegations are not against the Littlewoods Organisation but against past and present directors as individuals. This is a tactic designed to put pressure on us."