SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.
Lu Zhang, 28, sole director of SP Trading Ltd, pleaded guilty on 4 November 2010 to 74 charges in the Auckland District Court and was convicted but no penalty was imposed, said her lawyer Frank Deliu.
She could have faced up to five years in jail and/or a fine of $200,000, but was convicted and discharged. She was accused of making false statements in company registration forms by claiming that her office address was her residence. She registered 75 companies. (Auckland NZPA) [Read more…]
Computer South Ltd is well overdue in its obligation to file its 2010 Annual Return that was due in April 2010. The Companies Office website (www.companies.govt.nz) carries a warning to the company stating:
“This company is now overdue in its obligation to file an annual return. If the annual return is not filed immediately the Registrar will initiate action to remove the company from the register.”
The Companies Office website document records show that it is directed by a Mr Peter Bruce Ibbotson, a plumber and long-term friend of convicted fraudster Michael Andrew Swann, who was appointed in 1997. All the Annual Returns for the company from 2003 to 2009 were filed on line by female employees of Checketts McKay (Wanaka). The 2001 and 2002 returns were filed by “Solicitors, Checketts McKay (Wanaka)”. One of its principals Iain Grant Fyfe held 33% of the company’s shares from March 1997 to 14 September 2006 and then 50% until 22 September 2006 when they were all transferred to Ibbotson.
The bank account of Computer South Ltd was where much of the $15.2 million Michael Swann defrauded from the Otago District Health Board, was deposited from 2000 to 2006. [Read more…]
[The Society commends the following ODT Opinon Piece to those seriously interested in understanding the negative impact of declining moral standards and the increase in corruption prevalent in the community, on the “public good” and means by which authorities, employers and the public can help stem the marked increase in white-collar crime].
“… the people of Otago were served a timely reminder of white collar crime with the sentencing on additional charges of convicted fraud Michael Swann in the High Court at Dunedin….
“The expectation is that these will only rise during the next year or two – with KPMG forensics partner Mark Leishman predicting that this year fraud figures could rise as high as $200 million…. Not only are they [white-collar crimes] a severe impost on the financial health of the companies or public organisations on which they are perpetrated, but they sap the confidence of shareholder and taxpayer alike.”
For More go to: Editorial Opinion: Otago Daily Times 18 February 2010 http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/94008/white-collar-crime [Read more…]
On 11 February 2010 Michael Andrew Swann was sentenced to 20 months jail for accepting $755,154 in bribes from long-term friend and business associate Robin Sew Hoy: the sentence to be served concurrently with his present jail sentence of nine and a half years for his part in defrauding the Otago District Health Board (ODHB) of $16.9 million.
Swann had pleaded guily to corruption (accepting bribes) in November 2009 and on 17 December 2009 he was convicted in a jury trial in the Dunedin High Court of a single charge laid against him under the Secret Commissions Act relating to 85 secret “kick-back” (inducement) payments he received from Sew Hoy. [Read more…]
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it was “very pleased” when on March 12 2009 the two perpetrators of the largest fraud ever carried out by a state employee against a New Zealand government institution – the vulnerable Otago District Hospital Board (ODH) – were sentenced in the Dunedin High Court to lengthy prison terms. Both had been convicted by jury trial on 5 December 2008 of criminal intent to defraud the ODHB of $16.9 million using false documents.
The SFO described the $15.2 million fraud committed by the primary offender, former bankrupt Michael Andrew Swann, as the largest ever successfully prosecuted involving an individual person. Swann was sentenced to nine and a half years jail and his accomplice Kerry Gray Harford, to four years three months jail. [Read more…]