Dominion Finance directors sentenced to home detention, community work for untrue statements

Friday 16th August 2013

Former Dominion Finance and North South Finance directors Rick Bettle, Vance Arkinstall and Paul Forsyth were sentenced in the High Court in Auckland to home detention for making untrue statements in relation to the failed finance companies.

Bettle and Arkinstall, who pleaded guilty to five Securities Act charges including making untrue statements in offer documents, were sentenced to 10 months home detention and 200 hours of community work. In addition, Bettle was ordered to pay $90,000 in reparations.

Forsyth, who pleaded guilty to seven Securities Act charges including making untrue statements in offer documents, was sentenced to 11 months home detention, 200 hours of community work and ordered to pay $50,000 in reparations.

Dominion Finance had about 5,900 debenture holders with $176.9 million invested at the time of receivership in 2008. North South Finance was put in receivership in 2010, owing $31 million to about 3,900 debenture holders. Both were subsidiaries of NZX-listed Dominion Finance Holdings, which was placed in liquidation in 2009.

"Investors, many of them elderly, lost significant amounts of money and the effect of this has put a great deal of financial and emotional strain on them," said Sean Hughes, chief executive of the Financial Markets Authority which took the prosecution. "What this case highlights, like the many other finance company cases, is the responsibility of directors to provide truthful, accurate and timely disclosure of material information to investors."

In June, former Dominion directors Ann Butler and Robert Whale were sentenced to home detention, having pleaded guilty to Securities Act charges.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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