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Home / Business

Fraudster loses $4 million case brought by clients

NZ Herald
2 Nov, 2015 03:44 AM3 mins to read

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A jailed fraudster and his wife have lost a bid to go the Supreme Court. Photo / File

A jailed fraudster and his wife have lost a bid to go the Supreme Court. Photo / File

A jailed fraudster and his wife have lost a bid to go the Supreme Court in a $4 million case brought against them by 20 of their out-of-pocket clients.

The decision exhausts the couple's appeal rights and follows Nelson investment adviser Tony Mount recently failing to overturn his criminal convictions for fraud.

Tony Mount was sentenced last December to six years nine months' jail after being found guilty of 76 fraud charges, including for theft by a person in a special relationship and obtaining by deception.

Prior to his jailing, 20 of Mount's former clients took civil action against him, his wife and their company, alleging they acted dishonestly.

The couple operated a Nelson financial consultancy for more than two decades and invested money on their clients' behalf.

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In the action, the former clients alleged funds were missing and that the values of some investments were overstated, which meant the Mounts had claimed fees they were not entitled to.

As well as this, they accused the Mounts of keeping the proceeds of some investments for their own personal benefit.

The investors filed for summary judgment against the Mounts and their company, which was heard in the High Court at Nelson in 2013.In his decision on the matter, Associate Judge John Matthews found the Mounts had breached their duties, including to act honestly in their dealings with the clients and not defalcate their money. He was also satisfied that, as a consequence, the clients had suffered losses.

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He entered judgment in the clients' favour for close to $3 million, with interest, which brought the total award to over $4 million.

The Mounts failed to challenge the decision at the Court of Appeal, and only reduced the amount awarded against them by close to $55,000.While they then attempted to take the case to the Supreme Court, the Mounts were denied leave to appeal by Justices William Young, Terence Arnold and Mark O'Regan on Friday.

"We see no issue of general importance in the proposed appeal and no appearance of a miscarriage of justice," the trio said.

The couple's $900,000 former home has already been sold to satisfy the High Court judgment and the proceeds shared among the former clients.

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The group's lawyer, Rick Farr, today would not reveal how many cents in the dollar they had got back.

In a separate decision, the Court of Appeal last month turned down Mount's attempts to overturn his convictions.

Mount had argued he did not have a fair trial because he represented himself and was not given sufficient assistance. The three appellate judges disagreed and said they were satisfied the defence was adequately conducted without the assistance of a lawyer.

They dismissed the appeal but reduced Mount's sentence by nine months to six years' jail.

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