Dean Young, winner of the Megafish competition stands in front of the Izuzu Ute. Photo / Warren Buckland
Dean Young, winner of the Megafish competition stands in front of the Izuzu Ute. Photo / Warren Buckland
A company run by the fishing contest promoter who initially refused to hand over a ute to a competition winner is back in business.
Prestige Events, directed and majority owned by David Baty, was put into receivership yesterday over a $1872 debt to Invoice Funders Auckland.
But Companies Office recordsshow the receivership was over by this afternoon.
"The director of the company paid the outstanding amount due to the appointer shortly after the commencement of the receivership," says a report from receivers Damien Grant and Steven Khov, of Waterstone Insolvency.
Prestige runs the Auckland Snapper challenge but it is another of Mr Baty's enterprises, OddsOn Promotions, that recently hit the headlines.
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Mr Baty initially declined to hand a $48,000 Isuzu ute to the winner of a fishing competition held in Hawkes Bay over Waitangi weekend.
Dean Young caught the prize-winning marlin and was going to sell the vehicle and split the proceeds with the three other men aboard his boat.
Mr Baty said Mr Young failed a polygraph test over the winning catch but, after a hailstorm of controversy, later said a "peer review" of the test cast doubt over its reliability and he would pay out.
Dean Young with the striped marlin he caught on the first day of the 2016 Hawke's Bay Sport Fishing Club tournament. Photo / Annette Hilton
Mr Young could not be contacted tonight but Alex Smith, of the Hawkes Bay Sports Fishing Club, confirmed the vehicle was in Mr Young's possession, after Isuzu handed it over.
"It vindicated the angler, the club and also the sponsors. We rely on our sponsors hugely in these sorts of events and they've been 100 per cent behind us," Mr Smith said.
Mr Young, a former police detective, always maintained there was nothing improper about the catch.
Mr Baty said the payments for the ute were now between the fishing club and the sponsor.
"[The club] have received the payments for the claim, Mr Young has his ute," Mr Baty said in a text message to the Herald.
He said he would talk about the receivership at "a later date", but yesterday said he disputed the $1872 debt, calling it "ridiculous".
"There's an email in there, which last week I missed, which said we're threatening you with receivership. I've paid the $1800 to him today, and got to take it to the Small Claims Tribunal and dispute it. The law's an arse," he said.
Mr Baty said yesterday Prestige's upcoming fishing competitions, the Auckland Snapper Challenger and next year's Beach and Boat, were still going ahead.
In late March, the company blamed "lower ticket sales" for delaying its Auckland Snapper Challenger until October.
