Crown prosecutor Ella Palsenbarg, acting for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), sought a starting point of nine to 12 months’ prison on the two charges, to which he earlier pleaded guilty.
In light of his extensive criminal history, including more than 70 convictions for dishonesty and 30 for breaching his obligations as a bankrupt, the fact he submitted the forms using an alias spoke for itself, Palsenbarg said.
“Six months is much too low,” she said.
Judge Thomas said the defendant’s offending meant the Companies Office was not immediately aware of who was behind the companies he was trying to register.
There is a high public interest in ensuring the Companies Office and the marketplace have integrity, he said.
“If it doesn’t have integrity it undermines public confidence in the market,” Judge Thomas said.
“In short, it affects the ability of our economy to function in a credible way.
“There is a high public interest in protecting the market from you.”
He sentenced Branson-Marsters to seven months in prison on each of the charges, to be served concurrently.
Life of lies
An investigation by MBIE estimated the total losses caused by Branson-Marsters’ dishonesty offending, personal bankruptcies and mismanagement of companies to be in excess of $2.1 million.
The High Court judge who approved the 15-year ban sought by the Companies Office said his actions put him in the most serious category of cases,
In the most recent chapter of his chequered business history spanning decades, Branson-Marsters was prosecuted by MBIE for filing false statements when registering two companies.
An MBIE summary of facts said he registered one company, H & D Property, using the address of a downtown Auckland apartment in which he had never lived.
He also used a false name, David Harding, to register another company, Qualifund.
Branson-Marsters, now in his 60s, was charged with breaches of the Companies Act in December 2021.
A few months later, the Registrar of Companies applied to the High Court at Auckland for an order banning him from directing, promoting or managing a company.
In his judgment delivered June 14, Justice Geoffrey Venning said the Registrar sought a 15-year ban, which was not opposed by Branson-Marsters’ lawyer, Peter Tomlinson.
Venning’s judgment and previous court documents obtained by the Herald shed light on Branson-Marsters’ extensive criminal history.
A senior MBIE investigator, Bryce Rayner, estimates the total losses caused by Branson-Marsters’ dishonesty offending, personal bankruptcies and mismanagement of companies to be more than $2.1 million.
His 119 convictions include 74 for dishonesty, spanning burglary, dishonestly using documents and obtaining by deception.
Over the years he has also been convicted of 30 offences for breaching his obligations as a bankrupt person.
He has legally changed his name several times.
Born David Lawrence Monk, he has legally changed his name three times, to David Lawrence Marsters, Michael Aguilera and most recently Lawrence Alexander David Branson-Marsters.
In June 2001, the Inland Revenue Department launched an investigation into his affairs.
But shortly after his initial interview, he jetted off to the United States.
Three years later he was deported back to New Zealand after an investigation by US officials into false statements he had made to them. Preparations for extradition proceedings were under way when he was deported.
On April 8, 2005, he pleaded guilty to 48 counts of using a document with intent to defraud relating to filing fraudulent GST returns.
His GST fraud netted hundreds of thousands of dollars of ill-gotten gains.
Following a prison term for those crimes he was back before the courts a few years later, receiving a sentence of community detention for obtaining by deception and dishonestly using a document.
As a result, he was slapped with an automatic five-year ban from directing a company.
Then in 2015 he was convicted and sentenced for a spate of dishonesty offences over three years.
His crimes included roping a neighbour into directing a company in which he had convinced the neighbour to invest, violating his ban, as well as a charge of causing loss by deception.
For these frauds he was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment, receiving a further five-year Companies Act ban.
In considering this year the accused man’s latest ban from being a company director, Justice Venning said the court can make an order longer than 10 years, or permanent, only in the most serious of cases.
Branson-Marsters’ ban will lapse when he is 75 or by further order of the court.
MBIE integrity and enforcement manager Vanessa Cook said his 15-year prohibition is the second longest handed down by the High Court to date.
Only three people have now been prohibited for longer than 10 years under Section 383 of the Companies Act.
The others are David Blake (aka David Colin Hughey and David Morgan-Blake) and Lance Jack Ryan (aka Michael Darren Gibbs and Lance Jared Thomson).
Blake was prohibited for 12 years from April 3, 2019. Ryan was prohibited on the same day and was permanently banned.
