Forum Finance boss Bill Papas facing intellectual property rights over food waste fight

Forum Finance boss Bill Papas is facing legal action over allegations of intellectual property rights violations.

Forum Finance director Bill Papas.

Forum Finance boss Bill Papas is facing legal action over allegations of intellectual property rights violations regarding food waste dispenser machines he was selling in Australia and overseas.

The machines, installed in restaurants, pubs, hotels, shopping centres and other sites where waste accumulates in kitchens and other food preparation facilities, are also at the centre of the $400m in fraud allegations Mr Papas faces in Australia and New Zealand.

The fraud claims involve big banks Westpac, Societe Generale, and Japan’s SMBC Leasing and Finance, while National Australia Bank is Forum Finance’s transaction bank and Macquarie Group has a very small exposure to the equipment leasing firm.

The local allegations against Mr Papas and Forum entities relate, in some instances, to forged invoices and signatures for equipment lease agreements that were not signed off by customers, including Veolia Environmental Services.

The revelations about the intellectual property rights legal action against Mr Papas followed a creditors’ meeting being told on Wednesday the sale of Forum Group – which runs the managed IT service business – was imminent and could be agreed within 24 hours.

Administrator Mackay Goodwin had also been negotiating the sale of Autonomous Energy, but those talks will now be handled by McGrathNicol, which takes over the administration process for a host of Forum entities.

One of Mr Papas’s bigger ventures was ORCA waste dispensers, which formed much of Forum’s growth after he became in 2016 the exclusive distributor of the dispensers in Australia, NZ and Britain. That followed the signing of an agreement with ORCA’s North American parent Minus Global.

The distribution deal for the machines, which break down food waste into water, was conducted with a company called ESI which is affiliated with Mr Papas’s Forum Enviro – ultimately owned by the wider Forum Group.

North America-based chief executive of Minus Global, Louis Anagnostakos, told The Australian the agreement with Mr Papas was terminated early last year and his company was pursuing legal action.

“After a promising first two years, the team at ORCA became concerned that ESI had not been complying with the terms of the distribution agreement. In March 2020 the distribution arrangements came to an end,” Mr Anagnostakos said.

“Minus Global has had no business dealings with ESI, Forum or Bill Papas since then. Neither ESI, nor any other Papas-affiliated company, has been authorized to sell ORCA products since then.

“At present Minus Global continues to pursue ESI and its affiliated companies in relation to IP rights violations.”

McGrathNichol chairman Jason Preston. McGrathNichol is taking over the administration process for a host of Forum entities. Picture: Britta Campion

The Australian has been told by sources that Mr Papas had begun manufacturing his own waste dispenser machines in Greece, under his Iugus brand. An Iugus machine was installed at Anfield, the famous home ground of English Premier League soccer club Liverpool in February last year, under a sponsorship deal since terminated by the club.

Iugus has offices in Greece, where Mr Papas is currently holed up after claiming to test positive for Covid-19, and the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Germany, Dubai and Croatia.

Sources told The Australian they believed Mr Papas’s girlfriend Louise Agostino – an Iugis employee until recently – had travelled overseas in the past week and may have joined him in Greece.

Mr Papas and Ms Agostino did not respond to calls and texts seeking comment.

A company called Trindus Biotech has been distributing Iugis Sagano, Iugus Tongass, Iugus Congo and Iugus Amazon food waste dispensers in Croatia as recently as late June.

A corporate brochure shows a string of multinational hotel and shopping centre and supermarket chains as clients and an endorsement from The Langham Hotel in London that says in part it has had “a positive impact … on the environment … with the Orca device …” installed at its premises.

According to Forum Group of Companies financial reports obtained by The Australian, the firm claimed to have sold Forum Enviro for $5m last year. Forum Enviro is a business started by Mr Papas and seemingly ultimately owned by the wider Forum group.

On the administration process, McGrathNicol will now steer that as well as managing the liquidation of Forum Finance, Forum Group Financial Services, Forum Enviro and Enviro (Aust).

The extensive links and the inter-company loans throughout the Forum entities made it more efficient for one firm to run the concurrent processes, creditors were told.

There were close to 180 creditors in attendance at the online meeting on Wednesday. Among those was an Australian Taxation Office representative, who said the agency was owed $104,255 from the Autonomous Energy entity and $57,500 from Forum Group.

A representative for the Attorney-General’s department also dialled into the creditors’ meeting, as it oversees the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, a safety net scheme for eligible employees.

One Forum employee told the creditors’ meeting they were owed $133,905.

Westpac’s legal counsel will square off against Forum’s and Mr Papas’s barrister on Thursday at a case management hearing.

Orders published by the Federal Court on Wednesday show leave has now been granted for Forum’s files held by Our Kloud to be handed over. This comes after some delay in accessing Forum’s records held on servers.

Mr Papas is the second respondent in the Westpac fraud action and he is joined by third respondent and fellow Forum Finance director Vincenzo Tesoriero in the case. Mr Tesoriero attended the creditors’ meeting on Wednesday.

That came after Westpac succeeded in having the court order him not to leave Australia without giving the bank 24 hours notice.

However, public court records show that by 6pm Mr Tesoriero had not filed an affidavit of his assets, as instructed by Federal Court Judge Michael Lee.

This is despite senior counsel Greg McNally, acting for Mr Tesoriero, telling the court on Tuesday he would aim to file by “tomorrow morning”.