KEY POINTS:
Bridgecorp staff were allegedly told to lie to investors who complained about late interest payments, telling them a bank error or a computer glitch was to blame.
One member of the finance company's investor services team was said to have been moved sideways after she refused to mislead
people.
Former Bridgecorp executive directors Rod Petricevic and Robert Roest appeared in the Auckland District Court yesterday, facing three criminal charges each.
The charges - two under the Securities Act and one under the Companies Act - follow defaults on payments in the five months before the finance company collapsed last year.
The details are in the summary of the Registrar of Companies' case against the two former directors.
It says that four months before the receivership on July 2 last year, a Bridgecorp employee sent out an email - copied to Petricevic and Roest - saying the directors would need to be satisfied that information in the company's prospectuses "remains accurate and is not misleading due to any events which have occurred".
The Companies Office says that drew this reply from a colleague: "Maybe we could tell them that we have no money, can't pay our bills, are holding back payments, lying to investors and brokers about why their money hasn't been paid ... "
The summary of facts says Bridgecorp was so short of money that on April 17 last year it had only $45,000 available to meet almost $2 million in payments due to investors.
The company collapsed last year owing 14,000 debenture holders $459 million. Receivers say investors will get back as little as 13c in the dollar.
The summary says despite defaulting on numerous payments between February and June that year, the company continued to take in $92.5 million of investors' money.
The Registrar of Companies claims that in March last year, Petricevic and Roest met Bridgecorp employees to discuss the problem of late payments.
At this meeting, it was decided the investor services team would falsely tell investors who rang that there had been a bank error or a computer glitch.
Meanwhile, the executive directors had signed two prospectuses and a directors' certificate to Bridgecorp's trustees saying the company had never missed an interest payment or repayment of principal.
But by this time, the Companies Office alleges, the financier had been late with many payments.
It says that from February 7 until the receivership, $17.2 million worth of interest and principal payments were delayed and another $3.9 million were never paid.
Petricevic and Roest have been remanded without plea to reappear in court on September 9.
If convicted they each face a maximum penalty of a $300,000 fine and five years in prison.
Petricevic is also facing bankruptcy proceedings being brought by Bridgecorp's receivers.
As a condition of his bail he was required to surrender his passport, and to live either at his house in Remuera or at another address to be notified to the court.
Roest was required to live at his house in Greenhithe.