Letters sent to paid-out investors

ROSS Asset Management (RAM) liquidator John Fisk is making an 11th hour bid to claw back money from investors in New Zealand’s biggest Ponzi scheme, with as much as $30 million at stake.

The clawback is initially aimed at 25 investors, but close to 200 could face a claim to strip money from them.

He said he had sent letters to 25 investors asking them to agree to a standstill arrangement so that their investment transactions did not exceed the 6-year limitation period under the Property Law Act.

Some of the investors had as little as a week to go before the limitation period kicked in; in other cases it was a ‘‘month or more’’ Fisk said.

The move follows a recent case where Wellington lawyer and RAM investor Hamish McIntosh, was ordered to pay back the fictitious profits of $454,047.62 he withdrew from RAM before it failed.

McIntosh has appealed the decision to the Court of Appeal. It holds the promise of allowing investors who lost heavily to claw back up to $30 million.

Fisk said the claims against investors for recovery of fictitious profits or principal amounts could be time-barred as a result of waiting for the Court of Appeal process.

‘‘I don’t have details of how much but they are sizeable enough for us to want to preserve them and if we can’t reach a standstill arrangement with them we will have to file a claim in court for those transactions,’’ Fisk said.

David Ross, 65, was jailed for 10 years and 10 months in 2013 for operating a fraudulent scheme that fleeced at least 700 investors with portfolios which they thought had more than $380m.

Bruce Tichbon of the Ross Asset Management Investors Group said there were 193 investors who were in line to have money clawed back.

One of the largest claims that he was aware of was for $2m, but he did not know if that investor had received a letter from the liquidator.

He advised investors who received the Fisk letters not to panic, but also not to try and avoid receiving papers from the court or liquidator.