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Tavira custody businesses face scrutiny following regulatory action and disputed civil claim
Public records show that businesses associated with Tavira have undergone changes to their custody operations following regulatory intervention in Dubai and Monaco. Separately, Tavira Monaco is a defendant in English civil proceedings concerning shares provided as collateral for a stock-backed loan.
The civil allegations remain disputed, and the public judgments reviewed for this article do not establish that Tavira knowingly participated in fraud. Neither Tavira nor its founder, Eliot Goodfellow, is charged in the related United States criminal case.
An international financial group
Tavira was founded in London in 2005 as Tavira Securities. It has since expanded into areas including agency brokerage, asset management, corporate broking and custody.
The group has operated through regulated businesses in several jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, Monaco, Dubai, Australia and the United States.
Goodfellow remains Tavira Financial Limited’s controlling shareholder. Companies House records state that he owns at least 75 per cent of its shares and voting rights and has the right to appoint or remove directors.
Tavira Financial’s accounts for the year ending 31 March 2025 reported increased revenue alongside a wider annual loss. The accounts also referred to the closure of its contracts-for-difference business and restructuring of its custody activities as the group concentrated on agency brokerage, asset management and corporate broking.
The Salinas civil proceedings
Tavira Monaco is one of six defendants in English civil proceedings brought by Mexican businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego and Corporacion RBS.
According to the claimants’ case, as summarised in a 2024 High Court judgment, Salinas transferred Grupo Elektra shares worth more than $400 million to two custodians, Weiser Global Capital Markets and Tavira Monaco. The shares were provided as security for loans under a stock-loan agreement concluded in July 2021.
The claimants allege that they entered the transaction after being led to believe that the lender was associated with the prominent American Astor family and that the shares would not be sold unless an event of default occurred.
They further allege that Vladimir Sklarov, who used the name “Gregory Mitchell” in connection with the transaction, caused the shares to be transferred and sold without their authority and used part of the proceeds to fund the loans themselves.
Financial Mail reported in June 2025, citing trading logs reviewed by Salinas’s team, that some of the disputed shares were sold through transactions involving Morgan Stanley, BBVA and Merrill Lynch. The report did not allege that those banks knew of or participated in the alleged fraud. Their appearance in a transaction chain does not, by itself, establish misconduct or knowledge of any underlying dispute.
These remain allegations in continuing civil litigation. In the interlocutory proceedings, the Sklarov defendants maintained that the transaction documents entitled them to trade the collateral and that Salinas’s advisers had been told this. The public decisions reviewed for this article do not amount to a final determination of Tavira Monaco’s liability.
The High Court granted freezing and proprietary injunctions in August 2024. An application by the Sklarov defendants to discharge those injunctions was rejected in October 2024. Later appellate proceedings concerned procedural and evidential issues rather than a final trial of the underlying claims. Tavira Monaco was not involved in the most recent appeal.
Separate US criminal case
A US federal indictment filed on 30 April 2026 and unsealed in May charges Sklarov with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York alleges that Sklarov operated an entity presented as an established stock-backed lender associated with the Astor family. Prosecutors allege that he used aliases and false representations to obtain control of shares worth approximately $450 million.
Sklarov has not been convicted in that case. The charges are allegations, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The publicly available indictment charges Sklarov, not Tavira Financial, Tavira Monaco, Goodfellow, Morgan Stanley, BBVA or Merrill Lynch. The existence of the criminal case should therefore not be taken as establishing criminal conduct by any of those companies or individuals.
Restrictions in Dubai
On 10 September 2024, the Dubai Financial Services Authority imposed restrictions on Tavira Financial Limited’s Dubai branch.
According to the DFSA public register, the firm was restricted from soliciting or conducting specified regulated financial-services business with new clients. It was also restricted from soliciting or onboarding new clients in connection with financial promotions.
The public register does not state the reason for the restrictions and does not connect them to the Salinas litigation.
Tavira’s accounts subsequently referred to a decision to close the Dubai branch’s custody operation and to restructure custody activities across the group. The DFSA register nevertheless continues to list Tavira Financial as an authorised firm, subject to the published restrictions.
Companies House records show that Goodfellow ceased to be a Tavira Financial director on 13 September 2024, three days after the restrictions were imposed. Neither the DFSA entry nor the Companies House filing gives a reason for his departure or establishes that it was connected to the restrictions or the Salinas proceedings.
Monaco sanction suspended pending challenge
Tavira Monaco has also been the subject of regulatory action.
On 12 February 2026, Monaco’s Commission de Contrôle des Activités Financières ordered the withdrawal of Tavira Monaco’s authorisation after upholding four regulatory breaches.
The published CCAF decision found that the company had failed to submit required accounts, activity reports and auditors’ reports within statutory deadlines. It also found that the company had not continuously maintained two people responsible for its strategic direction and management, had lacked a bank account in its own name with a Monaco credit institution since July 2023, and had lacked sufficient human and technical resources since 2023.
Tavira Monaco challenged the decision. On 21 May 2026, the President of Monaco’s Supreme Court suspended its execution. According to the CCAF’s current case notice, Tavira Monaco’s application to annul the decision remains pending.
The withdrawal decision should therefore not be described as presently effective without also reporting the suspension and continuing challenge.
Questions about custody controls
The Dubai restrictions, restructuring of custody operations and Monaco proceedings raise legitimate questions about governance and operational controls. They do not, by themselves, prove any connection to the alleged misconduct in the Salinas transaction.
The English civil case raises separate, disputed questions about the instructions received by Tavira Monaco, the authority it understood the relevant parties to possess, the movement of the collateral and the custody records maintained during the transaction. Those matters remain for determination in the civil proceedings.
Right of reply
EU Reporter sent Tavira Financial, Tavira Monaco and Eliot Goodfellow a detailed summary of the matters in this article and asked for their responses concerning the civil allegations, regulatory decisions, custody restructuring and Goodfellow’s departure from the board. EU Reporter has received no replies from Tavira Financial, Tavira Monaco and Eliot Goodfellow
EU Reporter also asked Morgan Stanley, BBVA and Bank of America, the parent company of Merrill Lynch, whether they could confirm the reported transactions and whether they wished to comment. Morgan Stanley replied, saying “no comment”. The others, BBVA and Bank of America, the parent company of Merrill Lynch, have not replied at all.
