Tax accountants Walter Tieleman and Sean Pearce from Perth firm McKessar Tieleman, and Melbourne-based accountant Stephen Warton have been sentenced to five years’ jail with a minimum of 18 months.
The jail terms are for the accountants’ role in a tax effective managed investment scheme, Servcom, sold to hundreds of Goldfields investors.
In other legal news this week, the Australian Crime Commission has also brought a total of 341 charges against Northbridge identity and businessman John Kizon and his associate Nigel Mansfield.
Mr Mansfield is charged with 296 counts of insider trading, 11 counts of communicating inside information under the Corporations Act, nine counts of money laundering under the Proceeds of Crime Act and one of destroying evidence under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act.
Mr Kizon has been charged with 17 counts of insider trading and three counts of communicating inside information.
Both have been charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit insider trading under the Corporations Act.
Some of the charges relate to Mr Mansfield’s alleged involvement in the sale of five million shares in My Casino Ltd in 2000, where he made a profit of more than $3 million.
The remaining charges refer to the period between January and July 2002, in which Mr Mansfield and Mr Kizon are alleged to have been involved in trading more than two million Adultshop.com Ltd shares and nearly four million My Casino shares.
Meanwhile, former Welcome Stranger and Hallmark Gold director Stuart Adrian Corp has been committed to stand trial on 85 charges under the Corporations Act, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act, and Crimes Act.
He will appear in the District Court of Western Australia on September 3.
The Corporations Act charges relate to alleged conduct by Mr Corp concerning shares in Hallmark Gold, now called Hallmark Consolidated Limited, and Welcome Stranger Mining Company, now known as Commsecure Limited, while he was a director of those companies. Last week the Supreme Court of Western approved the automatic confiscation of $3.7 million arising from the sale of shares in Welcome Stranger.
Noel Dyson