A wealthy American lawyer whose lifestyle includes private jets, beachfront properties and flashy yachts is among marauding legal eagles trying to cash in on Britain’s growing car finance scandal.

Harris Pogust, 61, a veteran of the US legal scene, boasts online of his sprawling mansion with a pool, gym and wine cellar.

His London-based company, Pogust Goodhead (PG), allows him and his British partner, Thomas Goodhead, to live in luxury thanks to the cut he receives from compensation awards on major cases that can run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

The firm told The Mail on Sunday that 60,467 of its customers from previous cases had been brought forward for a car loan case.

When he wins class-action lawsuits, he pockets up to 50 percent of the victims’ money for himself. But consumer experts say drivers can claim their own rights and get 100 percent of the payment.

Pogust, a New Jersey native, often flaunts his wealth on Instagram, including a post last month showing off his six-bedroom, eight-bathroom home. His wife’s social media includes photos of Pogust and her dog on private jets and yachts.

Business fishing: Harris Pogust shows off his catch online

Goodhead is a lawyer educated at both Oxford and Cambridge and co-founded the firm with Pogust in 2018.

The group is locked in a high-profile fight with Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP in the High Court in London over the Samarco dam disaster in Brazil in 2015, which killed 19 people and contaminated the waterways and soils of many villages. The class action is estimated to be worth £36bn. PG will reportedly take up to 30 percent for individuals and firms.

But Rubens Barbosa, Brazil’s former ambassador to the UK, accused the firm of encouraging hundreds of thousands of claimants to reject a £24bn settlement plan in favor of continuing the case in the Supreme Court, where there is no guarantee of winning.

A PG spokesman said: ‘Pogust Goodhead represents the 620,000 victims whose lives have been devastated; We make no excuses for using the tools at our disposal to try to level a wildly uneven playing field against some of the biggest, most powerful, and best-resourced. companies around the world.’

The firm itself is seeking to save costs, according to reports, spending millions on its legal battles, including plans to lay off around 20 per cent of staff at its London office and lose up to 50 jobs.

The Court of Appeal ruled last month that commissions paid to car dealers could be illegal if they were not disclosed to customers. Firms involved include Close Brothers, one of the UK’s oldest commercial banks, as well as Lloyds and Santander.

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