From iNO’s perspective the collapse of the Ponzi scheme operated by West Australian Chris Marco had been most notable for the public scourging meted out in respect of fees charged by the former administrators of Marco’s AMS Holdings (WA) Pty Ltd (The Company).
In April 2024 Federal Court judge Michael Feutrill ruled on a challenge to almost $1 million billed by Richard Albarran, Marcus Watters and Cameron Shaw of Hall Chadwick for about 10 week’s work.
His honour approved about $100k and according to the Minutes of meetings of the Company’s Committee of Inspection, the Hall Chadwick trio only got paid this year.
But last week iNO’s attention became focussed on the work of the Company’s special purpose liquidators (SPLs) and special purpose receivers (SPRs) after they commenced public examinations of staff from Marco’s ex-banker, Westpac.
PKF’s Jason Stone and Glenn Franklin were appointed SPLs and SPRs in September last year after AMS creditor and Perth accountant Charlie Napoli tired of the seeming reluctance of incumbent GPLs and GPRs Rob Brauer and Rob Kirman of McGrathNicol to pursue claims against Westpac.
Those claims focus on Westpac’s potential liability in respect of the hundreds of millions paid into Marco’s personal Westpac bank account, of which very significant sums were then transferred offshore to Marco’s HSBC Expat Account in the notoriously tax-lenient jurisdiction of Jersey.
At this stage it is not known if Marco was the sole account holder, whether the funds remain in the HSBC account or whether the tax haven bank is cooperating.
The examinations commenced on Thursday and early on Friday counsel for ex-Westpac wealth manager and examinee Nicolas Plaisted approached the court with a delicate matter.
Alinea Chambers‘ Eleanor Doyle-Markwick told Justice Sam Vandongen that during Plaisted’s examination before a Registrar the day before he’d been asked a question by Mark Hoffmann
KC, counsel for Stone and Franklin about a $14 million transfer to the Jersey account.
$14 million is of course small beer in comparison to the total amount Marco is alleged to have sucked into his unregistered managed investment scheme – iNO’s mail is that the sum is now well in excess of half a billion – or how much of that was sent offshore.
But Doyle-Markwick had more immediate concerns, explaining to Justice Vandongen that such was the sensitivity of such a question put to a former employee of an authorised deposit-taking institution that not only might her client incur a criminal penalty for answering but she might breach the same statute simply by explaining the nature of her objection, if she was required to do so in open court.
Doyle-Markwick came before Justice Vandogen mere hours before Plaisted’s examination was due to resume.
Justice Vandogan was not prepared to make orders, determining it would be best for the Registrar to deal with the application for closure of the court and any subsequent suppression application.
Registrar Russell Trott subsequently made orders later that morning adjourning Plaisted’s examination to a later date and ordering that the examinations proceed in closed court until further order.
Next examinee up is ex-Westpac compliance and operations manager Corinne McNamee on May 15.
Following her will be the recently promoted Westpac executive general manager Damien Pougnault on a date to be fixed.
Where Stone and Franklin’s inquiries take them is as yet unknown but we can report that they are being funded by the deep pockets of Court House Capital, the litigation funder backed by wealthy Texan investor Elton Hyder IV.
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