Antony de Vries.
There you are, trying to enjoy retirement – albeit as an undischarged bankrupt – when the missus declares that being a part time ballet teacher leaves her both ill-equipped and without time to manage the marital super.
Can a bloke not get a moment’s peace from the burden of managing money, even when you’re not supposed to have any?
Well not perhaps when you’re a former liquidator and trustee in bankruptcy who’s opted to be declared bankrupt rather than pay creditors.
And particularly not when those creditors have a judgment debt that would wipe out every one of the more than five million dollars sitting in the Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF) of which you are a beneficiary.
After all, it’s not like the misses is going to leap with joy hearing she’s now en pointe fulltime.
So it was in such circumstances that dVT Group co-founder Antony de Vries – who with a degree in commerce and a masters in accounting is more than qualified to deal with SMSF compliance and the attendant rigours of investment – applied late last year to court for orders exempting him from the rules that prevent bankrupt’s managing corporations.
This was because the trustee of the de Vries Family Superannuation Fund has since 2002 been a corporate trustee called Spiderman Co Pty Ltd and while the Superannuation Act requires each beneficiary of the fund to be a director, the Corporations Act says a bankrupt can’t manage a corporation’s affairs and neither, it seems, can a part time ballet teacher or anyone for that matter apart from her husband.
“I do not wish to, nor feel I have as deep a background to be fully effective as a director of the Company, and considering it is the trustee of the Fund providing for the financial security of my family, I would not be comfortable with someone else serving as director besides Antony, Lucinda de Vries said in her affidavit in support of her husband’s application, which was filed within weeks of sequestration orders being made against him on November 3, 2022.
For those unfamiliar with the background, de Vries and dVT co-founder Riad Tayeh were bankrupted last year on the petition of the liquidators of Timbercorp Finance.
According to de Vries’ affidavit in support of his exemption application, between 2006 and 2009 he and Tayeh agreed to loans from Timbercorp Finance in the amount of $1,125,173.00 to fund their long term investments in the supposedly tax effective agricultural scheme that blew up in April 2009.
In June 2009 creditors resolved to wind up the group and KordaMentha’s Craig Shepard and Mark Korda were appointed liquidators.
The liquidators naturally enough sought to recover as much from Timbercorp’s thousands of investor/debtors as they could and de Vries and Tayeh fought them every step of the way, even making a failed bid this time last year for special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia.
By the time interest and costs of the various proceedings were added to the loan debts, Tayeh and de Vries were facing a bill of almost $5.4 million.
Tayeh was bankrupted in mid-2022 and de Vries followed in November. PCI Partners Stephen Michel is trustee of both men’s bankrupt estates.
In his application for an exemption to be able to manage Spiderman Co as trustee for the family Fund, de Vries alluded to his exemplary record.
“I have never been sanctioned by ASIC or AFSA for misconduct nor by any professional body of which I was a member, in relation to my insolvency appointments,” de Vries said, as if this was a special achievement and not the least that should be expected of some of the financial system’s most important gatekeepers.
Neither ASIC, AFSA or Michel chose to engage with the application and the court made orders on January 30, 2023 providing de Vries with the exemptions necessary to continue managing the more than $5 million balance in the de Vries Family Superannuation Fund.
That figure comes courtesy of Michel’s December 13, 2022 creditors report which included the intriguing detail that de Vries had omitted to record any sum for superannuation in his bankruptcy form.
“However, the bankrupt disclosed in his questionnaire and interview that he is a member of
the De Vries Family Superannuation Fund which his member balance (sic), as at 30 June 2021,
was in excess $5,000,000,” Michel reported.
“The bankrupt advised that he had believed he had disclosed his member balance in the Bankruptcy Form and it must have been an inadvertent omission.”
Evermore intriguing is de Vries’ admission that upon retiring from dVT in 2021 he sold his share in the dVT Group partnership for less than $50,000.
de Vries told Michel that the seemingly low amount was due to the fact that he had retired during the COVID pandemic.
Michel confirmed a valuation had been obtained but provided no detail in his report as to who might have provided the valuation or the methodology they used.
He did however advise creditors that his investigations into the bankrupt’s pre-sequestration contributions to the de Vries Family Superannuation Fund and the partnership stake sale were continuing.
As expected Mrs de Vries is the sole proprietor of the couple’s family home in Cheltenham.
Unexpectedly, she’s also the sole proprietor of the house next door, where the bankrupt said he used to live. His and hers neighbouring homes.
Now if that’s not a formula for guaranteed wedded bliss, it’s at least the basis for an annulment offer.
Further reading:
Liquidator Bankrupted Over $5.4 Million Debt
DVT Group Founders Facing Bankruptcy
DVT Duo Cop Whopper Timbercorp Debt
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