Court extends former Compass boss' jail term

Former Compass Hotel Group boss Brian Northcote has had his sentence for breaching directors duties and submitting false information to the corporate regulator extended by a New South Wales court.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said today that the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal had re-sentenced Mr Northcote to a new term of three years and six months.

Mr Northcote was initially sentenced to two years jail in September last year on the charge of breaching director's duties and submitting false documents.

The charges were centred on Mr Northcote's private company, Yard House Australia and New Zealand, which entered an agreement with a hotel broker under which it would receive 50 per cent of all sales commissions paid by the Compass Group to the broker.

Yard House received around $1.5 million in commissions, with Mr Northcote, or companies controlled by him, receiving $1.1 million.

Mr Northcote failed to disclose his interest in Yard House at 10 separate Compass Hotel Group meetings between December 2007 and August 2008, while he also told ASIC in October 2007 that he had resigned from the group.

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions appealed the two-year sentence on the basis that it was inadequate.

"The total effective sentence imposed of two years to be served by ICO was manifestly inadequate because it did not reflect the seriousness of the offence, the extent to which the respondent personally was financially advantaged by the offence, the need for general deterrence and to the need to impose a sentence which both punished Mr Northcote and denounced his criminal conduct," the court said today.

Mr Northcote will be eligible for release in September next year under a good behaviour agreement.