Director elusive as developer liquidated
A company linked to Sir Ngatata Love’s fraud case has been put into liquidation.
In late 2016, the Inland Revenue Department successfully applied to have Pipitea Street Development (PSDL) restored to the companies office register, then quickly launched liquidation proceedings.
But the proceedings were put on hold for two months, because Inland Revenue could not find its last director, Shaan Stevens.
The law firm named as PSDL’s registered address said it was no longer associated with the company.
Yesterday, during a short hearing in the High Court at Wellington, Associate Judge Warwick Smith put the company into liquidation following a further application by Inland Revenue.
No-one representing the company appeared in court.
In October, Love was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison after a High Court trial found him guilty of defrauding the Wellington Tenths Trust, of which he was chairman.
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 were used to pay down debt on a beachfront home on Moana Rd in Plimmerton, which Love jointly owned with Skiffington.
In April, Love appealed his sentence and conviction on the grounds his ‘‘disabled state’’ made him unfit to plead and stand trial. A decision on the appeal was reserved.
PSDL was set up by Skiffington and Stevens, whom she had worked with at consultancy Guinness Gallagher.
Stevens, a former chairman of Wellington Free Ambulance and Victoria University of Wellington council member, 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 register after failing to file an annual return since 2011, but was restored in 2016 when there was no opposition to Inland Revenue’s application.
Earlier this year, Inland Revenue 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 the department has been trying to find an address for Stevens, who is now based in Singapore, according to his LinkedIn profile.