Enrico Pucci: Businessman banned from managing corporations

High-flying businessman and “rogue” employer Enrico Pucci has come crashing back down to Earth following a new ruling from ASIC.

High-flying businessman and “rogue” employer Enrico Pucci has come back down to earth with a crash.

Currently behind bars on remand charged with fraudulently altering a medical document tendered in a court case, Pucci was this week banned from managing corporations for five years after allegedly “phoenixing” labour hire and cleaning companies owing almost $10 million.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that in a separate case, the NSW District Court was told in medical reports in September last year that Pucci had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In January this year, he posted a video of himself on Facebook gyrating with scantily-clad dancers in his harbour-view CBD apartment celebrating his 46th birthday.

Despite his lavish Facebook lifestyle, he was made bankrupt last year under each of his names Enrico Pucci aka Henrico Pucci aka Riccardo Sorrenti owing $98,361, according to Federal Court documents.

Documents show he personally also owed a total of $2,679,972 including $1,967,732 to the Australian Taxation Office.

In disqualifying him, the corporate watchdog ASIC this week said Pucci had established a long list of companies with evidence pointed “strongly to a practise of phoenixing”. Phoenixing involves liquidating companies to avoid paying liabilities.

ASIC cited a case where one of his cleaning companies, Grouped Property Services, was fined a near-record $447,300 after the Federal Court found it had treated vulnerable 51 workers, most from non-English speaking backgrounds, as “slaves” under a “calculated” scheme with breached the Fair Work Act.

Outside court at the time, Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James said the case was one of the agency’s most complex matters and labelled Pucci a “rogue” employee.

Pucci was arrested on March 15 this year and charged with intending to pervert the course of justice. According to the charges, police allege he “fraudulently altered a medical document and caused it to be tendered in the District Court on an appeal.”

He is in jail with bail formally refused.

His appeal is due to be heard next week against convictions imposed by Hornsby Local Court in May last year for four count of driving while disqualified for which he was sentenced to 12 months jail with six months non-parole. The sentence was suspended pending the appeal.

Enrico Pucci has been banned by ASIC from managing companies for five years Picture: Supplied

ASIC said this week that Pucci was banned from managing corporations until March 2027.

It said that the three companies of which he was a director — Grouped Property Services Pty Ltd, National Contractors Pty Ltd and GPSFM Pty Ltd — owed a combined total of $9,710,858 to creditors, including $2.4m owing to the Australian Taxation Office, $1.27m to the NSW State Revenue Office and $711,730 in an outstanding judgment the matter of Fair Work Ombudsman v Grouped Property Services Pty Ltd.

This is on top of his personal bankruptcy.

GPSFM provided cleaning, security management and maintenance services to commercial premises. Grouped Property Services and National Contractors provided labour hire to the group of companies connected to Pucci, including GPSFM.

ASIC found that he had acted improperly in a number of areas including ripping off vulnerable workers when he showed a “shameless exploitation of a vulnerable workforce and inept attempts to avoid its legal consequences.”

“Illegal phoenix activity causes serious harm that often leads to creditors and employees not being paid money owed to them,” ASIC Commissioner Danielle Press said,

“ASIC takes illegal phoenix activity very seriously and will hold people who engage in this conduct accountable. ASIC will continue to work closely with other agencies within the Phoenix Taskforce to share information and intelligence to detect, deter and disrupt this behaviour.”

Mr Pucci has the right to seek a review of ASIC’s decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.