$190k reparation loan sways judge
The key figure in a dubious foreign-exchange trading software scheme will be allowed to leave the country and conduct international business deals unimpeded as a result of borrowing $190,000 to pay reparation.
After pledging the reparation, Mark Raymond Brewer was ordered to pay a $5000 fine in the Auckland District Court yesterday having earlier pleaded guilty to charges of running a business while bankrupt.
Judge Stephen O’Driscoll said if the reparation payment was not made in full Brewer could be resentenced.
‘‘Mr Brewer, don’t do anything silly again in the future.’’
Outside court a jubilant Brewer said, ‘‘Justice has been served.’’
At an earlier sentencing indication hearing Judge O’Driscoll said a term of home detention was appropriate, but the late offer by Brewer to borrow $190,000 to pay his victims had changed matters.
Brewer’s lawyer, Brent O’Callaghan, said Brewer’s business partner, David McEwen, had agreed to front the reparation payment.
‘‘Because Brewer has no ability himself to make reparations he has to essentially mortgage his future earning capacity,’’ Mr O’Callaghan said.
Mr McEwen, who was in court supporting Brewer and indicated to Judge O’Driscoll that he was satisfied with the loan, is a former business editor of the National Business Review and co-founder of Investment Research Group.
Mr O’Callaghan said the payment from Mr McEwen was reliant on Brewer being able to ‘‘travel overseas for business purposes’’ immediately after sentencing and would be void if home detention was imposed.
Mr O’Callaghan sought a sentence of only a $5000 fine.
Judge O’Driscoll, in agreeing with Mr O’Callaghan’s submission to impose only reparation and a fine, said Brewer was not paying for a lighter sentence.
‘‘The $190,000 is not a matter of buying his way out of home detention, it’s a matter of providing for the victim,’’ he said.
The charges, brought by the Companies Office, relate to Brewer’s involvement in Intervest Global, a company that sold expensive horse-race betting software.
Judge O’Driscoll ordered the reparation be paid to the company’s liquidators.
At the time of the offending Brewer was into his second bankruptcy, the first occurring in 1997 and the more recent in 2010.
His second bankruptcy was annulled in June after he satisfied the court his debts had been repaid.
More recently Brewer worked as the lead salesman for OakFX trading software, subject to a warning from the Financial Markets Authority.
McEwen is a shareholder of the ultimate owner of the group selling OakFX.
The software cost $24,700 in licence fees, and the FMA said widely advertised claims it could produce annual returns of 65 per cent were ‘‘unrealistic’’.
Brewer was employed by his 23-year-old girlfriend, Kendall Twigden, in his role selling OakFX.
The Companies Office told Fairfax Media it was aware of Brewer’s involvement selling OakFX while bankrupt, but given his guilty plea for managing Intervest Global, he was unable to be prosecuted for the same offence a second time.