Ex-Liquidator to be sentenced for $2.5 million theft

Peter Andrew Amos will have to wait six months before learning if pinching almost $2.5 million is sufficient to see an ex-liquidator gaoled.

Amos, who last December pleaded guilty to six counts of dishonestly using his position as an officer of a company to gain an advantage for his business and himself attended the NSW District Court for a brief hearing on Friday.

“Between 2 February 2017 and 9 November 2020, withdrawals totalling approximately $927,431.84 were made from the DOCA account that remain unaccounted for.” Robyn Duggan, EY.

Accompanied by his lawyer Clayton Davis, Amos, 48, appeared older but relaxed as NSW District Court judge Tim Gartleman SC ordered that he return to court for sentencing on June 17. Amos declined to comment when approached outside the court.

A statement of facts Amos signed on December 14, 2023 reveals that between 2016 and 2022 Amos transferred $2,498,546.45 linked to five external administrations (Exads) under his control to three NAB accounts, two of which he operated as sole signatory and one operated jointly with his wife, Belinda Ellen Amos.

iNO makes no suggestion of wrongdoing in relation to Ms Amos who has not been charged with any crime.

The misappropriated funds were transferred to other accounts and used to pay myriad business and personal expenses including wages for Amos Insolvency, electric vehicle purchases, travel, $20,000 to the Frensham boarding school for girls and ATO debts.

In 2019 and again in mid-2021 Amos files were scrutinised by reviewing liquidators engaged by ASIC but it wasn’t until ARITA relayed concerns brought to it by a member in October 2021 that ASIC turned up the heat, requesting in November 2021 that Amos provide specific information relating to various administrations including Mikcon Employment Services Pty Ltd.

What followed was a period of almost 12 months during which Amos declined to provide the material requested, material which would have shown that he was taking from the administration accounts monies well in excess of the amounts approved by creditors.

Then on December 21, 2022 Amos, through his then lawyers Marsden’s, provided an undertaking that he wouldn’t transfer or deal with any funds under his control as an Exad except for transfers and payments in the ordinary course of his duties.

After requesting an amendment ASIC accepted the undertaking on the same day. But incredibly, six days later Amos directed that $500,000 intended for the deed fund of Conomi Group Pty Limited be diverted to one of the two accounts under his sole control.

Amos subsequently repaid $390,000 but $110,000 had by then been spent.

In early February 2023 Amos was interviewed by ASIC officers and EY partner Robyn Duggan was subsequently appointed to take over 83 of his Exads on February 13, 2023.

In her September 2023 Report to Mikcon creditors Duggan noted that Amos had been cooperative in terms of handing over his files and she had “recovered funds totalling $787,048.16 from the former deed administrator’s NAB bank account”. But there was more bad news than good.

“Between 2 February 2017 and 9 November 2020, withdrawals totalling approximately $927,431.84
were made from the DOCA account that remain unaccounted for,” Duggan said.

Duggan also told Mikcon creditors that she had sought legal advice in respect of applying for freezing orders over the proceeds of sale of a residential property in Cobbitty that had been held in Belinda Amos’s name and was sold in March 2023 for $2.68 million.

Duggan said the advice was that there insufficient evidence to support such an application.

The Statement of Facts confirmed Amos had been cooperative and had sought to resolve ASIC’s investigation at the earliest possible date with an early guilty plea.

But cooperative or not Amos, who started his career in insolvency working at Ferrier Hodgson at age 17, faces the possibility of being sentenced to up to 15 years imprisonment when he returns to court later this year.