ATO tries to freeze Nudie proceeds
THE Australian Taxation Office has made a last-minute attempt to freeze more than $80 million in proceeds expected from today’s sale of Nudie Juice to Philippines-based company Monde Nissin.
In an urgent Federal Court application heard yesterday, lawyers for the liquidator of BCI Finances, funding vehicle for Nudie Juice owned by the Binetter family, sought an immediate freeze on proceeds after last week’s discovery that the sale would be signed off today.
Andrew Tokley SC, for BCI Finances, which has the ATO as a major creditor, said there was concern third parties related to the Nudie group of companies had been selling down assets.
“We’re concerned that over the last eight months and particularly over the last four months there’s been a number of disposals of properties in which the respondents have interests which exceed $150m,’’ Mr Tokley said.
“We understand completion date of the sale of the Nudie Group is tomorrow. We’ve only just become aware of this.”
He said liquidators did not want to prevent the sale from going ahead but needed to preserve proceeds so that “in some point in time” they could take “further steps” to recoup money.
“The long and the short of it is the principal company is 96 per cent-owned by one of the respondents and we can certainly track the entitlements of the company by the sale of the Nudie business,’’ he said. “What we don’t know is the attitude of the respondents to these orders.’’
However, judge Anthony Besanko, in Adelaide yesterday, adjourned the application for 24 hours to give him and lawyers for eight respondents, some of whom had received orders only hours before the hearing, time to consider documents.
BCI Finances was targeted in the long-running Operation Wickenby investigation in which the ATO has claims for more than $26m from Binetter companies.
The ATO is asking to reverse a multi-million-dollar victory for the Binetter family and has accused witnesses, including Nudie’s late founder Emil Binetter and his son Andrew, of giving false evidence by denying that loans from an Israeli bank were backed by any security other than a personal guarantee. Court documents point to the loans being backed by funds held by the Binetter family in an account at Bank Hapoalim’s Swiss subsidiary.
The practice of disguising drawdowns on overseas funds by using “back-to-back” loans is at the centre of a US investigation into Israeli banks.
Hopes to freeze proceeds follow a Federal Court order this month that places an international travel ban on Andrew Binetter by seizing his passport.
Source : The Australian Business Review Meridith Booth January 30th 2015
