This morning Huljich, through a Pead PR representative, issued a statement acknowledging the verdicts, flagging a further appeal of his conviction to the Supreme Court and stating he was abandoning attempts to maintain further suppression.
“While I am disappointed with the outcome, I acknowledge the judge’s findings. Although the Court of Appeal has recently declined my appeal, I now intend to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. I maintain my innocence and am hopeful that eventually I will be cleared of wrongdoing,” Huljich said in the statement.
Last week when the Court of Appeal delivered its ruling, the FMA’s head of enforcement Margot Gatland said: “We were pleased with the court’s decision to uphold this conviction. Insider trading is a serious offence that undermines investor confidence in New Zealand markets. The FMA will continue to take action when we see this type of misconduct as it damages the trust and confidence in New Zealand’s financial markets and businesses.”
At the time of the offending, Huljich was Pushpay’s New Zealand general manager and an alternate director. After the transactions in question, he later joined the board as a full member.
Huljich is a leading member of the rich-list Huljich family, who helped build his grandfather’s restaurant business into a considerable fortune encompassing property and start-ups.
The National Business Review most recently assessed the family’s wealth at $560 million.
Peter Huljich was last in court in 2011 when he pleaded guilty to misleading the public over returns to his Huljich Wealth Management (HWM) Kiwisaver scheme. It was revealed Huljich had topped up his HWM, which had the effect of improving published returns.
In that case, the FMA was also the prosecutor and he was fined $112,400. Publicity over the prior convictions was a significant plank in Huljich’s arguments for name suppression in the contemporary case, with a judge agreeing it might harm his rights to a fair trial.
Takedown orders were issued by the High Court that saw many media outlets, including the Herald, required to suppress historical coverage of that decade-old case.
Permanent suppression orders in the current case continue to cover both the amount and value of Pushpay shares traded, and at what times, and any details about the trust – and Huljich’s relation to it – which conducted the trades the jury found amounted to insider trading.
In his statement, Huljich claimed the inside information he was convicted of possessing – concerning the planned resignation and selling down of Pushpay co-founder Eliot Crowther in 2018 – was immaterial to the company’s share price or “at the lower end of materiality”.
“My defence at trial – and what I maintain to this day – was that I neither advised nor encouraged the trust’s beneficiary or trustees to sell their shares,” he said.
“This has been an incredibly challenging experience, both personally and professionally. It also serves as a cautionary tale for others in similar situations: it is all too easy to find yourself caught up in a situation with unintended legal consequences.”
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.
