IRD can’t find fraud-linked director
A bid to liquidate a company tied to Sir Ngatata Love’s fraud conviction has been postponed because Inland Revenue (IRD) cannot locate its director.
In late 2016, the IRD successfully applied to have Pipitea Street Development Limited (PSDL) restored to the companies office register, then quickly launched liquidation proceedings.
But the proceedings have been put on hold until late June because IRD cannot find its last director, Shaan Stevens, and the law firm named as PSDL’S registered address says it is no longer associated with the company.
In October Love was sentenced to 21⁄2 years in prison after a High Court trial found him guilty of defrauding the Wellington Tenths Trust, of which he was chairman at the time of the offending.
The court found that in 2006 and early 2007 Love arranged for PSDL, a company controlled by his then partner Lorraine Skiffington, to be awarded a contract by Auckland developer Redwood Group, which was seeking to develop on Tenths Trust land.
The proceeds of two payments totalling about $1.5 million was used to pay down debt on a beachfront home in Plimmerton, which Love jointly owned with Skiffington, a former adviser to attorney-general Margaret Wilson.
PSDL was set up by Skiffington and Stevens, who she had worked with at consultancy Guinness Gallagher.
Stevens, a former chairman of Wellington Free Ambulance, has also been convicted and served a sentence of home detention for fraud. The charges were not related to the Love case, in which he appeared as a trial witness.
PSDL was struck off the companies registrar after failing to file an annual return since 2011, but was restored in 2016 when there was no opposition to the IRD’S application.
On Tuesday the IRD requested an adjournment in the liquidation proceedings until June to allow time to find Stevens and serve documents to him as the director of PSDL.
Earlier, the IRD sent the documents to Wellington law firm Gault Mitchell, the registered address of PSDL, but was told the office was no longer associated with the company.
Since then, it has been trying to find an address for Stevens.
According to his Linkedin profile Stevens, who was declared bankrupt after serving the sentence of home detention, is now based in Singapore.
Skiffington quit as a director of PSDL in February 2011.
About 18 months later, she was appearing as a witness in the High Court trial of Barrie James Skinner and David Ingram Rowley, her accountants, where allegations that she benefited from a payment designed to be concealed from the Tenths Trust first surfaced.
When the judgment of the pair’s trial became public, Love quickly stepped down as chairman of the Wellington Tenths Trust and several weeks later the Serious Fraud Office confirmed it was investigating.