TRIATHLETE CAUGHT UP IN ASIC PROBE

CORPORATE cops have closed a group of Gold Coast wealth creation businesses established in the wake of the $40 million Members Alliance collapse.

A letter from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission seen by the Gold Coast Bulletin shows it has struck the shutdown deal with Tweed Heads lawyer Liam Young, who is the director of six companies in the Benchmark Private Wealth group.

The proposed agreement is expected to be presented to the Queensland Supreme Court as soon as this week.

Varsity Lakes-based Benchmark was set up in 2016, shortly after Members Alliance went into liquidation.

Mr Young was Members Alliance’s general counsel and Benchmark took on 50 Members Alliance employees, including high-flying Hope Island husband and wife Braiden Marlborough and Maighan Brown.

Braiden is the son of Richard Marlborough, who was last month arrested and charged by Queensland Police for allegedly dishonestly inducing victims to deliver over $2.2 million for the construction of houses in Queensland and New South Wales.

Members Alliance – a group of 36 mainly Gold Coast-based companies – is suspected of taking construction progress payments without doing work, leaving investors in the lurch.

ASIC is formally investigating both Members Alliance and Benchmark.

In November last year it sought court approval to have a provisional liquidator appointed to Benchmark, saying it was “concerned about transactions entered into with a number of other companies which were a part of the Members Alliance Group and the director of those other companies, Richard Marlborough”.

ASIC wanted the liquidator, Grant Thornton’s Mike McCann, to search for evidence of breaches of the Corporations Act.

Mr McCann reported that he suspected up to 10 sections of the Act had been breached by Richard Marlborough, Mr Young and Ms Brown, who is well known in the Gold Coast triathlon community.

The allegations against Mr Marlborough include that he was acting as a “shadow director” of Benchmark.

He, Mr Young and Ms Brown deny the allegations.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Braiden Marlborough.

The new agreement between ASIC and Mr Young means the Benchmark companies will be wound up.

ASIC suspects Richard Marlborough of fraudulently diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales commission from a Sydney property development away from Members Alliance creditors and into Benchmark.

ASIC alleges some of the money – $70,000 – was handed to Mr Young by Braiden Marlborough. Richard Marlborough denies the fraud accusation and has indicated he will fight the charges.

By the time Mr McCann came in as provisional liquidator, all bar four employees had left.