SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.
The Registrar of Companies is making the rare bid of extending the statutory company director ban of a convicted businessman to 10 years due to the seriousness of his offending.
And just when he thought his days in court were over, he’ll be back next month to hear the Registrar of Companies application to have his statutory five year ban from being a director of a company extended to 10 years. [Read more…]
Convicted fraudster Alex Swney was declared bankrupt today.
Last month he was jailed for five years and seven months for using false invoices to fraudulently obtain more than $2.5 million from the downtown Auckland promotion agency Heart of The City, which he had founded and led for
nearly two decades.
Alex Swney – TV(NZ)
Swney was also found guilty of tax evasion, having avoided paying more than $1.7 million in taxes to Inland Revenue. Including penalties and interest, he was found to owe $3.8 million.
The bankruptcy – which had been sought by the IRD – is now in the hands of the Official Assignee, who will seek to recover funds for any creditors. [Read more…]
“It is about time New Zealand law caught up with the slippery slope – and beneficiaries – of ponzi schemes”
“OF ALL the great minds in the world, few can outperform the mind of a Member of Parliament in devising reasons why something cannot be done …. [as illustrated by] Commerce Minister Paul Goldsmith, who has produced an impeccably inactive response to the plight of ponzi scheme victims of fraudster David Ross.”
Dominion Post Opinon Piece (21/01/15) by “Chalkie” – Fairfax Business bureau deputy editor Tim Hunter
Full article xsee: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/65245344/ponzis-square-pegs-in-insolvency-laws-round-holes
Note:
David Robert Gilmour Ross, Wellington financier and former head of the Ross Asset Management Ltd (RAM) [In Liquidation from 17/12/12], was sentenced at the Wellington District Court in 2013 to 10 years 10 months’ jail.
Today a front page Dominion Post report has called into question an appeal submission by jailed fraudster David Ross‘s lawyer, Gary Turkington, against his client’s sentence of a minimum parole period of five years five months as being “unreasonably crushing” and “manifestly excessive”. Turkington, presenting his case to three Court Judges [see note. 1], questioning the point of such a lengthy minimum term imposed by District Court Judge Denys Barry at Ross’s sentencing on 15 November 2013, for a man in his “twilight years”, and Ross, 64, dwelling without hope in prison. “He’ll emerge with nothing”, he said, as he sought a minimum non-parole period of four years.
The Dompost report has highlighted the fact that Ross’s wife, Jillian Elizabeth Ross, who was jointly indebted with him to Ross Asset Management Ltd (RAM) for $3.49 m, when the company collapsed, has recently bought a four-bedroom two bathroom Lower Hutt home with her brother for $725,00, after she pocketed nearly $900,000 from the sale of the family’s former $2.2m mansion at 105 Woburn Rd, Lower Hutt. [Read more…]
A fraudster’s victim who fought back has won a landmark battle to name and shame the man who scammed him and dozens of others. The Sunday Star Times (p. A5) in its report today describes the anti-fraud campaigner Steve Taylor as an “Online hero” (caption below his colour photo).
Re: Auckland District Court decision by Judge DM Wilson QC dated 24 April 2014 – Grant Norman King (Applicant) vs Stephen Dylan Taylor (Respondent) CIV -2014-004-000122
Lawyer Madeleine Flannagan, who advised [Steve] Taylor and has been the victim of online harassment herself, said the judge’s decision showed free speech was alive and well.
She said the unique nature of the case, setting a new precedent in harassment laws, meant it was already being used by media law professors at Auckland University.
Taylor’s website [http://www.grantnormanking.com/] also resulted in King being punished. Since setting up the website, Taylor said more than 70 victims had come forward, across a 32-year span, claiming losses of more than $3 million.
As a result, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Ministry of Social Development began their own investigations, which ultimately led to eight convictions against King for fraud. According to Taylor’s timeline, the pattern of dishonesty started when King was convicted of receiving stolen vehicles in 1982.
See Full story by Rob Kid published 25/05/14
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10081333/Judge-backs-bloggers-fight-against-fraud
[Read more…]