Capital + Merchant’s Nicholls, Douglas jailed for 7 ½ years, Tallentire gets 5 years
Aug. 31 (BusinessDesk) - Neal Nicholls and Wayne Douglas, directors of failed finance company Capital + Merchant
Finance, have been jailed for 7 ½ years apiece for fraud, while their former chief executive, Owen Tallentire, got five
years in prison.
The sentences were handed out in the Auckland High Court, rounding out an investigation into what Serious Fraud Office
CEO Adam Feeley called “some of the worst excesses of the finance companies saga.”
The sentences “will send a strong message to the commercial sector regarding the severity of punishment that will follow
cynical crimes of these kinds,” he said.
The trio were found guilty in July following charges laid by the SFO after an investigation into transactions involving
approximately $28 million between 2004 and 2006.
The SFO has appealed not guilty verdicts against Nicholls and Douglas from a separate Capital + Merchant trial in
April-May relating to the non-disclosure of alleged related party lending totalling approximately $14.4 million.
(BusinessDesk)