When Corporate Travel Management announced on March 22 that Ewen Crouch (until last week, chair of the Westpac board’s risk and compliance committee) would succeed Tony Bellas as its chairman, the whole thing had a whiff of intimacy about it.

Crouch’s appointment was effective immediately, you might recall, after Bellas revealed on March 13 that he’d disposed of 180,826 Corporate Travel shares on February 14 (in a blackout period) but failed to inform the company (which breached ASX Listing Rules and the Corporations Act by not publicly disclosing the change of interest within five and 14 days respectively). Those shares were transferred into the name of his ex-wife Maria Bellas under a Family Court order of November 13, 2018.