Creditors grant administrator dVT Group more time to follow the Nassif cash trail

Administrators of the failed Toplace empire have been liaising with law enforcement and the tax office over the assets of fugitive businessman Jean Nassif.

Fugitive property developer Jean Nassif. Picture: Liam Mendes

The administrators in charge of the collapsed Toplace empire have confirmed they have been in contact with authorities who are seeking fugitive developer Jean Nassif’s return to Australia.

The firm, dVT Group, has received demands for information by bodies ranging from NSW Police, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, NSW Fair Trading, and the Australian Taxation Office.

It has worked through hundreds of boxes of records containing hundreds of thousands of documents, and more than eight terabytes of data stored on servers, to respond to the requests.

DVT administrators Antony Resnick and Suelen McCallum said in a statement they were “proactively working with a range of regulatory and law enforcement agencies”.

“We cannot discuss or comment further in regard to any matter relating to those investigations,” they said.

At a meeting in Sydney on Friday Toplace creditors owed about $400m agreed to give dVT another 45 days in order to put together a plan to try to recoup funds.

Their efforts have been stymied by the chaotic state of Toplace’s books ahead of the developer’s collapse last July when its building licence was revoked and Westpac withdrew its support.

Mr Nassif is a fugitive in Lebanon while his daughter, Ashlyn Nassif, has been facing legal delays after she was charged with a $150m bank fraud.

Ms Nassif is accused of falsifying documents to meet a $10.5m pre-sale condition for three towers of the Skyview apartment complex at Castle Hill in Sydney’s northwest.

The task of tracking down and securing funds has been complicated as Toplace ran a series of interconnected companies which shared funds and carried heavy debts.

Ashlyn Nassif has been charged over a $150m fraud. Picture: Gaye Gerard

DVT hopes to simplify what remains of the empire and to recoup funds from the remaining assets, which include a fleet of luxury cars.

The administrators said the complexity was driven by the fact there were more than 77 interrelated Toplace companies and it did not control all of them.

Despite this, the firm said it had managed in the past six months to realise approximately $300m in funds for creditors.

“We are now determined to chase down every available asset for creditors and we are confident that there are substantial assets yet to realise,” they said in a statement.

They said that their investigations had uncovered a myriad of interrelated company loans, creditors and payments from Bankstown to Beirut.

“We have reconciled the majority of these inter-company accounts to 2022 and expect to do so for 2023 by April this year,” dVT Group said.

“This should assist us to get a far better picture as to how we can maximise returns to all creditors.”

It wants to put in a more simple structure to ensure that returns are not eaten away in costs or complex distributions, and is proposing all creditors and funds are pooled.

Creditors backed the plan for another 45 business days to both finish reconciling the accounts and prepare a holding deed of company arrangement to pool funds and distribute to creditors.