ASIC targeting lawyer

A FORMER top lieutenant of Queensland merchant banker Jenny Hutson has been charged with misleading the corporate watchdog during a probe into a stockmarket childcare deal.

The allegations against lawyer Mary-Anne Greaves, 52, include that she gave false or misleading information to investigators when denying having had discussions with Ms Hutson or another man about documents for the Takeovers Panel, a government agency that rules on takeover disputes.

Ms Greaves appeared in Brisbane Magistrates Court yesterday.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has been probing Gold Coast childcare giant G8’s failed attempt to buy rival Affinity Education in early July 2015.

The Takeovers Panel that year ruled G8’s bid involved unacceptable circumstances and breaches of disclosure rules about stockholdings in which G8 had an interest.

Three years later, ASIC has now charged three people including Ms Hutson, who was G8’s chairwoman until October 2015 as well as head of merchant bank Wellington Capital.

Ms Hutson, via lawyer Glen Cranny, has said she would defend the 30 charges, which include providing false information and perverting the course of justice.

Ms Greaves was company secretary at Wellington Capital and a former lawyer at McCullough Robertson until 2005. That was the same year, Ms Hutson left as a partner at McCullough’s corporate division.

Court charge sheets viewed by the Gold Coast Bulletin show ASIC questioned Ms Greaves in June 2016. The three charges include that she had given false information by saying she “did not remain in the meeting room with Nigel Benjamin Elias at McCullough Robertson in Sydney on 13 June, 2015.”

Mr Elias, who has not been charged or alleged to have engaged in any wrongdoing, was sole director and shareholder of a company called West Bridge.

According to the Takeovers Panel ruling, West Bridge acquired 11.3 million shares in Affinity in mid-late July 2015 and G8 had “an agreement, arrangement or understanding” with West Bridge about “the acquisition of Affinity shares”.

Ms Greaves is also charged with misleading investigators in saying that Mr Elias “did not update her on the progress of the filling of the purchase order for shares in Affinity … by West Bridge”.

Also appearing in court yesterday was David Burke, 59, who faces five charges. One is that he provided misleading information about having drawn “up a loan document which (Mr) Elias signed after a meeting held between the 10th and 13th day of July 2015”.