The corporate regulator has started civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court to disqualify five former Australian Property Custodian Holdings Limited (APCHL) directors from managing corporations.
ASIC said the APCHL directors – William Lewski, Mark Butler, Kim Jaques, Michael Wooldridge and Peter Clarke – breached their duties owed to Prime Trust members.
It was also seeking a declaration that APCHL breached its duties under the Corporations Act 2001 as the responsible entity of Prime Trust, it said.
On 18 October 2010, voluntary administrators were appointed to APCHL.
On 23 November 2011, Stirling Horne and Petr Vrescky of Lawler Draper Dillon were appointed liquidators following the creditors voting to place the company into liquidation. About 9700 investors contributed over $500 million to the Prime Trust.
“APCHL and its directors failed to act in the best interests of the members of the Prime Trust by purporting to amend the Prime Trust constitution to provide for the payment to APCHL of a fee in the event that the units in the Prime Trust were listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, and by directing APCHL to pay a listing fee of approximately $33 million out of scheme assets,” ASIC said.
The first hearing of the matter will be on 18 September.
APCHL is the responsible entity (trustee management company) of the Prime Retirement and Aged Care Property Trust (Prime Trust), a managed investment scheme that owns retirement villages in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
