Nathan's Finance directors get jail time, home detention
By Jason Krupp
Sept. 2 (BusinessDesk) - The Nathan's Finance saga came to a conclusion today after the High Court in Auckland handed
down two prison sentences and a home detention to three directors of the failed finance company for making untrue
statement on its registered prospectus.
Chairman Roger Moses was ordered to serve two years and two months in prison out of a possible five year sentence, and
ordered to pay $425,000 in reparations. Fellow director Mervyn Doolan was sentenced two years and four months prison
term, with reparations of $150,000. Donald Young was ordered to serve nine months of home detention and complete 300
hours of community service.
The sentencing was welcomed by the Financial Markets Authority, with the watchdog saying it sent a clear message that
the inclusion of untrue statements in issuers' offer documentation as a serious breach of law.
"The guilty verdict in this case, and the penalties imposed, show financial markets participants can expect to be held
accountable for their conducts," FMA chief executive Sean Hughes said in a statement. "This case demonstrates that
directors have a personal duty to ensure documents and advertisements offering securities to investors do not mislead or
deceive."
Today's sentences come after the three were found guilty in July of making untrue statements on a registered prospectus
and investment statement in December 2006, concerning lending to related parties, disclosure of bad debts and liquidity
levels, that its lending was diversified, and that it made loads and managed them in accordance with robust policies and
processes.
The directors were also found to have made further untrue statements when they signed a prospectus extension certificate
in March 2007, stating that the company's financial position had not materially or adversely changed since the
prospectus was issued.
Lastly, they were also found to have also made these untrue statements in letters to the public, advertising Nathan's
Finance.
All three defendants denied the charges.
The case was helped by former director John Hotchin, brother of Hanover Finance director Mark Hotchin, who pled guilty
and agreed to give evidence for the prosecution in return for a lighter sentence.
In March he was sentenced to 11 months' home detention and ordered to pay $200,000 in restitution. He was not charged
with sending letter containing untrue statements to the public as he had resigned from the company when the adverts were
sent out.
Nathans was sent to the receivers in 2007 owing some 7,000 investors about $174 million.
In November, the Serious Fraud Office gave up pursuing a prosecution against Nathans’ parent company, VTL Group, saying
its case couldn’t reach the appropriate threshold to proceed.
The SFO was investigating the authenticity of three licensing transactions VTL entered into with an American company in
2005 and 2006.
(BusinessDesk)