Liquidators continue pursuit of Forum Finance funds

Ongoing efforts by liquidators to chase down funds connected to the alleged Forum Finance fraud have seen another Tesoriero clan-controlled entity embroiled in a court stoush.

Alleged Forum Finance fraudster Vincenzo Tesoriero, left, pictured last year outside court with his lawyer. Picture: Jane Dempster

Ongoing efforts by liquidators to chase down funds connected to the alleged Forum Finance fraud have seen another entity controlled by the Tesoriero clan embroiled in a court stoush.

Papers filed in the Federal Court reveal liquidator McGrathNicol has taken aim at another company connected to alleged Forum Finance fraudster Vincenzo Tesoriero, in a bid to claw back $244,250.98.

The court foray comes after an earlier Victorian Supreme Court squabble between both sides, in which Mr Tesoriero and his father Giovanni Tesoriero – who is listed as a director of Haidi Holdings – had tried to argue the funds were not in fact owed to Forum Finance and the claim should have been thrown out.

Federal Court papers reveal McGrathNicol claims funds flowed from Forum Finance to the John Tesoriero Family Trust and the Tesoriero Investment Trust. Giovanni Tesoriero had claimed the debt was disputed.

“The statutory demand relates to debts owing by Haidi Holdings Pty Ltd … to the creditor in connection with ‘unpaid present entitlements’ distributed (but not paid) to the creditor by the debtor company as trustee of the John Tesoriero Family Trust between 2018 and 2019 totalling $244,250.98,” an affidavit lodged by McGrathNicol liquidator Jason Ireland with the Federal Court read.

“I have inspected the books and records of the creditor in relation to the debtor company’s account. I believe there is no genuine dispute about the existence or amount of any of the debts.”

Vincenzo Tesoriero is an alleged co-conspirator in Forum Finance’s fraud against Westpac. Mr Tesoriero along with Bill Papas were being pursued for about $400m over claims he used Forum to issue false and fraudulent equipment finance invoices. Those invoices were allegedly issued for equipment that often did not exist.

Forum boss Bill Papas pictured in Greece.

A suite of Mr Tesoriero’s companies were placed into administration in November 2022.

Mr Papas’s cousin, Forum co-owner and Our Kloud chief executive Eric Constantinidis, agreed to a peace deal with Westpac in December 2022.

The affidavit was lodged in support of the liquidator’s application to wind up Haidi Holdings to get back the money.

In a Victorian Supreme Court judgment delivered in December, associate judge Julian Hetey said Mr Tesoriero disputed the debt claimed but did not clearly identify “the basis of the dispute”.

“In my opinion, none of these matters give rise to a genuine dispute about the debt the subject of the statutory demand,” he said.

“The allegation that the financial documents supporting the debt claimed are unreliable is equivocal and lacking in precision. (And) the debt was contemporaneously recorded in various books and records of both the plaintiff and the defendant across a number of financial years.”

The Supreme Court had heard the debt was raised due to “an unpaid book entry or entries and those book entries are incomplete as at 2020 and inconclusive”.

Associate Judge Hetey found the Tesorieros’ claim “does not set out in what material respect(s) the underlying financial records are unreliable, or how such unreliability affects the defendant’s calculation” of the sums owed.

“Critically, neither Mr Tesoriero nor (Luigi) Stefanetti gave evidence to suggest the Family Trust ledger account, which is a record maintained by the plaintiff, was itself inaccurate or unreliable,” he said.

Westpac lodged its own court fight against Forum in 2021, and more than 10 months after hearings in the matter Federal Court Judge Elizabeth Cheesman is yet to deliver judgment on the case.