By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
The Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club came through the drama of its annual general meeting last December into a period of relative calm.
For those who came late, the club still known as the “spiritual home of Australian tennis” after hosting the Australian Open for most of the 1970s and 1980s, was forced to call in external auditors over a $2.4 million “accounting loss” from its dining and functions operations. That’s a mountain of wagyu beef.
Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club is attempting to put a rough patch behind it.Credit: The Age
As we reported, external auditors blamed poor financial management and reporting, and the club said there was no evidence of criminal activity. Various officials departed.
Steve Wood, the respected former chief executive of Tennis Australia, was elected unopposed as the new president in December. He appointed as chief executive experienced sports administrator Ian Robson, who had run Melbourne Victory, Rowing Australia and the Essendon Football Club when it was engulfed in the 2012 supplements scandal.
The pair then settled in for a long five-setter to get the club back on track.
On April 30, Sarah Sheer, a board member during the wagyu-gate saga, resigned, effective immediately.
But faster than a Novak Djokovic first serve, by May 2 she was back.
Wood shared the happy news that Sheer had been appointed as the club’s new marketing and communications manager, following a “rigorous recruitment process” led by Robson and people and culture manager Jo Westover.
“The process attracted over 100 applications, with Sarah emerging as the preferred candidate,” the prez told members.
Robson politely declined to comment. Sheer starts on Monday. Gone, but not for long.
Brothers at arms
There has been an update in the legal/media/court of public opinion/war of attrition between two old boys from Sydney’s Cranbrook School, Ben Scott and James Kennedy.
The lads were behind the high-end property reality-TV show, Luxe Listings, before their relationship imploded in claim and counterclaim.
Now it is lawyers and PR agencies at 10 paces, with a dramatic press release from Scott’s camp pinging into inboxes late last week with the headline, “NSW Court Blocks James Kennedy’s Attempt to Shut Down Luxe Listings Lawsuit”.
Well, not quite.
Falling out: Ben Scott (left) and James Kennedy, the creators of Luxe Listings.
Scott himself supplied quotes in the release issued on behalf of his lawyer, Sharangan Maheswaran, of XD LAW.
“This entire exercise has likely cost James Kennedy hundreds of thousands of dollars and has only stalled the inevitable,” said Scott, who has also been in the news in unconnected stories related to his friendship with Fadi Ibrahim, of the Sydney celebrity family.
“This all appears to be a desperate attempt by Kennedy to shield his communications with Rolex from scrutiny,” Scott said.
Kennedy and his team declined to comment.
But the press release actually references a NSW Supreme Court judgment from April 23, so it’s a little on the tardy side.
We previously summarised the two gentlemen’s beef thus: Scott claimed Kennedy had breached his duties as a co-director of their production company, Kentel Australasia, by selling Luxe Listings to Amazon for a song, and secretly used the TV program as product placement for the Rolex and Patek Philippe watches his business sells. Kennedy denies the claims, of course.
This latest court judgment related to an application by Kentel to discontinue the proceedings on March 26.
Kennedy quit Kentel months ago, but they appointed two new directors who tipped the whole joint into administration on March 27.
Justice Peter Brereton dismissed the application to discontinue but noted he was not compelling Kentel to prosecute their civil claim “if it does not wish to do so”. Rather it was “a matter for the administrators” who are now responsible for the affairs of the company, including whether to continue with any legal claims.
“Mr Scott may have an interest in any such application. In any event, it is a matter for the parties to chart their course,” he said.
So, there’s bound to be more. Not the least of which is that Kennedy himself has filed a personal motion for a summary dismissal against his former mate Scott, but that is yet to come before the court. There’s a TV show in this drama somewhere.
Thanks for all the laughs
On Friday night, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave a video address aimed at an audience of one – this column’s former cartoonist in residence, John Shakespeare, whose work regularly appeared in The Age.
Shakes, as he is widely known, left The Sydney Morning Herald last August and is now seriously ill with cancer. Albo sent a tribute filmed at The Lodge to a gathering of 200 journalists from across four decades who attended a tribute night on Friday at a Sydney pub with Shakes and his wife, Anna-Lisa Backlund.
“Pride of place in my personal office, here is this wonderful Shakespeare depiction of myself and Toto the wonder dog,” Albanese said.
One of our favourites: John Shakespeare captures the happy moment when Anthony Albanese proposed to Jodie Haydon. Credit: John Shakespeare
“One of the things that really characterises all of your remarkable work is that you can be incisive without being cutting.
“Your cartoons are generous and show people’s character without their downside that some cartoonists sometimes display. And that says a lot about the nature of your spirit.”
The prime minister’s tribute was one of several from around the world.
For these columnists, no matter how far south our day was heading, our daily phone briefing with Shakes brought good times – as he quietly fizzed with ideas about that day’s news makers.
Then, in an impossibly short time, there appeared a pocket masterpiece of wry commentary to gladden the news cycle.
Shakes is adored by us, by our readers, and more often than not, by the subjects of his gentle pen, who would ring us and say, “How can I buy that cartoon of me?”
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