Trustee To Pursue Fate Of Williams Assets
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday January 24, 2007
The former HIH chief executive Ray Williams is getting out of jail early. It is just for a week, and he will have to return behind bars each night.
Unfortunately, the venue for the family reunion of sorts is Sydney's Federal Court, where Williams, his wife, son and accountant have been summonsed for a week-long examination of where Williams's millions have gone. The examination, which is being run by his bankruptcy trustee, is being financed by the 70-year-old's own refund from the Australian Taxation Office.Williams filed for bankruptcy in August 2005, four months after he was sentenced to 41/2 years' jail for his role in the $5.3 billion collapse of the insurance company he founded in 1968.Mark Robinson, the trustee from the chartered accounting firm PPB, has hired the barrister Steven Golledge to question the four over the validity of sales and transfers of $11.5 million in property and shares offloaded by Williams since September 2000.HIH collapsed six months after the sale of personal assets began, leaving shareholders with nothing and policyholders without cover. The list of assets sold by Williams includes his $5.6 million Mosman mansion, sold to his HIH associate Brad Cooper two months after the collapse.Williams's wife, Rita, lives in the house, and Cooper is serving a prison sentence at Cooma jail. Other assets include a $5 million beachside holiday compound sold in September 2002 and an $846,000 share portfolio sold over a 21/2-year period. Williams claims he does not have the money to pay creditors including his former lawyers, Arnold Bloch Leibler, and the liquidator of HIH and FAI, who is seeking a total of $649 million from four separate legal actions.Williams lists his assets as a superannuation policy worth $471,000, a $10,000 boat, two cars worth $6500 and $10,000 worth of BHP Billiton shares and $639 in ANZ shares. Over five days starting on March 5, Mr Robinson hopes to learn whether assets which should have gone to creditors have been passed to a related party or family member. Mr Robinson said yesterday he believed Williams had declared all of his current assets and the inquiry would focus on examining Williams's past transactions. Mr Robinson will consider the evidence given by Williams, his wife, his son Stuart and accountant David Hunt and use it to decide whether it would be necessary to retrieve assets transferred to others. "I am getting answers to questions [from the family]. I just want to test whether they are the right answers," Mr Robinson said. "With the help of a barrister I can really test whether what has been said holds water." Williams is likely to be discharged from bankruptcy in August next year, eight months after his parole date.
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald
