The liquidators of Trustor, the Swedish investment company involved in an alleged international fraud unearthed last year, are suing Barclays Bank for £38 million sterling (€57.58 million)

Lawyers for the liquidators have filed a claim in London's High Court, alleging that Barclays was in breach of contract and negligent in the handling of a Trustor account.

Barclays said last night that it would defend itself against the claim. The High Court challenge is an important step in the protracted legal battle by Trustor shareholders to recover some of the funds allegedly removed from the company in 1997 by Lord Moyne, the Guinness family peer, and business associates.

The case centres on an alleged fraud at Trustor after Lord Moyne bought a controlling stake and became non-executive chairman in June 1997. Later, 620 million Swedish krona (€71.35 million) disappeared from Trustor's bank account held at SE Banken, of which only SKr135 million has been recovered.

Lawyers acting for Trustor have discovered that the SKr620 million was transferred to a newly-opened Trustor account at Barclays in London, and that most of this was transferred to other bank accounts not held by Trustor in the UK and elsewhere, amounting to a loss of SKr485m.