Kathmandu co-founder Jan Cameron has lodged fresh legal action against Seafarms Group in the latest bid to recoup some of the millions she invested in the Project Sea Dragon prawn farm.
Kathmandu co-founder Jan Cameron has lodged fresh legal action against Seafarms Group in the latest bid to recoup some of the millions she invested in the Project Sea Dragon prawn farm.
A writ lodged in the Federal Court of New South Wales revealed Ms Cameron along with other shareholders, through the Elise Cameron Foundation Pty Ltd, was pursuing Seafarms Group Limited and five former and current directors.
Those were Ian Trahar, Harley Whitcombe, Paul Favretto, Christopher Mitchell and Hisami Sakai.
Mr Trahar is currently the chairman, while Mr Whitcombe is a director.
Mr Favretto was a director from 2007 to 2022, Mr Mitchell from 2005 to 2021, and Mr Sakai from 2018 to 2023.
Ms Cameron lodged the action against SFG on March 19, alleging the company and its directors engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct through its announcements in 2021 regarding the estimated cost of stage one of project sea dragon.
It alleged the business breached several statues, including the Corporations Act 2001, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act 2001, and the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.
It's not the first time Ms Cameron has gone down the legal route to recoup money she invested in the troubled-plagued prawn farm developer.
In a statement, Seafarms said it had not been party to pre-action discovery, but had been served with the claim.
The company said the claims were "unfounded", and that it intends to defend itself against the action.
In December, Seafarms Group completed its acquisition of assets and undertakings of Project Sea Dragon from the liquidator, paving the way for a return of the trouble-plagued northern shrimp farm project.
The transaction was completed via SFG subsidiary Sea Dragon Shrimp Pty Ltd.
It comes after years of delays, cost blowouts and legal set backs for the 10,000-hectare black tiger prawn project, which the NT government granted major project status in 2015, and the companies associated with it.
In February 2023, Project Sea Dragon entered voluntary administration after an order from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors to pay contractor Canstruct $13.9 million in unpaid fees.
A month later, the company announced it had entered a deed of company arrangement, which meant they would pay just 10 per cent of the total owing to Canstruct.
That DOCA was then rescinded by the Federal Court, which at the time said it was being used to allow PSD to avoid its liability in breach of the Corporations Act.
In February 2024, the Federal Court found the Seafarms Group subsidiary had been operating insolvent since at least June 2020, and appointed KordaMentha to act as liquidators.
It left several local sub-contractors, which had worked on the project, out of pocket.
That legal saga followed a scathing review of the project in March 2022, which found the project was "not viable" and involving unacceptable risks due to environmental conditions, remoteness and biosecurity threats.
That review, done by then-chief executive Mick McMahon following his 2021 appointment, left Mr McMahon "shocked".
Mr McMahon exited the company following the review, reportedly following pressure from the company's largest shareholder Ian Tahar.
In October of this year, Seafarms announced it would increase its revolving credit facility with Avatar Finance, raising the available facility from $8.5 million to $16.5 million and extending the payment to October 2026.
At the time, the company said it had considered an underwritten entitlement offer to raise the additional funds, but decided not to proceed after it became apparent Avatar Finance - which is controlled by SFG director and largest shareholder Ian Trahar - was the only underwriter.
That was because SFG shareholders had already rejected a proposed issuing of further capital to Avatar.
It led the company to seek a waiver from the ASX of the requirement it obtain shareholder approval to increase its secured debt facility with Avatar.
The ASX agreed to the waiver, subject to a provision which said, should the debt become unserviceable, the asset could only be disposed to Avatar if first approved by shareholders; otherwise it must be sold to an unrelated third party and the net proceeds of that sale be used to pay Avatar.
