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SFO bags guilty plea from former National Finance accountant

Friday 8th October 2010

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The Serious Fraud Office is celebrating its first guilty plea in a prosecution for theft relating to the collapse of National Finance 2000, in May 2006.

National Finance’s former accountant, John Gray, pleaded guilty in the Auckland District Court today to theft by a person in a special relationship, which related to misuse of National Finance funds in breach of its Trust Deed requirements.

Gray also pleaded guilty to a false accounting charge whereby he concealed the true recipient of funds by creating a false document.

Former National Finance director, Trevor Ludlow, is also charged by the SFO with offences relating to the misuse of funds. A trial date has yet to be set.

National Finance was an auto finance company, which left more than 2,000 holders of debenture bonds owed more than $25 million, when it became one of the first of a string of finance companies to fail over the past four years. Its absence of a credit rating was highlighted as indicating how little investors were able to distinguish about the quality of finance companies at that time.

The SFO’s chief executive, Adam Feeley, said that in the past 12 months the SFO had significantly shifted its priorities to ensure there were speedier outcomes on the corporate failures which had generated the most public concern.

“Results such as this demonstrate that there are serious consequences for breaching the law and help ensure the investing public can have greater confidence in the integrity of our financial markets.”

Feeley said that the SFO was currently investigating 19 cases of suspected serious fraud involving an estimated $630 million, and prosecuting a further 32 cases involving an estimated $265 million.

“There are enormous challenges with cases of this scale and complexity. However, our strategy of focusing on fewer, but larger cases which have had greater public impact, and achieving faster results, is beginning to pay dividends.”

Businesswire.co.nz



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