Heart Research Institute directors to front court case against Professor Shaun Jackson

Professor Shaun Jackson is battling it out in the courts. Picture: Kat Stanley Photography

Most lawyers will tell you their work doesn’t save lives, but a case starting on Monday could prove the exception.

Almost the entire board of the Peter McGauran-chaired Heart Research Institute will be called to give evidence against former head of cardiovascular research, Professor Shaun Jackson. He’s the researcher leading clinical trials into a clot-busting drug, TBO-309, that works by encouraging rushes of blood to the head.

Jackson’s legal claim isn’t a novel one. He alleges that his contract at HRI wasn’t renewed and it’s a result of him querying a suspicious underpayment of funds to his lab. Curious, too, is that he claims to have been assured by McGauran that he would receive a five-year renewal of his contract, after which the professor embarked on a staff hiring spree and set about securing substantial government grants.

Seeing McGauran squirm in the witness box would be enough to draw a sizeable courtroom audience on any given day of the week, but joining the former agriculture minister will be a line-up of the HRI board, suggesting the institute itself – and perhaps any dysfunction within – might be well ventilated for spectators. The Federal Court YouTube channel might need to steel itself for the flutter of heart specialists and medical researchers hoping to catch a glimpse of the show being presided over by Justice Elizabeth Raper.

It’s also quite a mess that this litigation has caused in holding up the human trials of TBO-309, as it’s unromantically known, much as newly discovered planets are named like nine-digit passwords. In that sense, lives ­really are at stake.

Optus goes woke

Gather round and applaud Optus’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity. And why not? They’re patting themselves on the back about it internally.

An email dispatched on Thursday by the telco’s VP of People and Culture, Kate Aitken, spoke of some of the design features being pursued at its under-construction Sydney HQ – known as O-Pavilion – at Macquarie Park.

Optus is serious about diversity. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Diego Fedele

So committed are the telco’s DEI commissars that the company has “successfully sought an exemption to the Building Code of Australia” to ensure it has “an all-gender bathroom” and a space “inclusive of all genders”.

Moreover, Optus is working equally hard to acknowledge its presence on Wallumattagal Land, or what used to be known as the suburb of Ryde. “We’ll work together to identify and select appropriate Indigenous names for the rooms and deck,” the email said.

Tokenism? We wouldn’t be that cynical. In fact, why be unkind about this at all? It’s not like the company has ever had to wrestle with a significant nationwide security concern … like an enormous data breach.

The directors of Optus parent Singtel must be rolling their eyes. Last time we checked, there weren’t many gender-neutral bathrooms in the conservative island state.

Bowl me over

When the private equity firm is called Straight Bat, the expectation is for any write-up to include a generous heaping of cricket puns.

You won’t find them here. Snark, yes. Jest, of course. Puns? Never.

But plenty were put to use on Wednesday night at Straight Bat’s annual results presentation for about 200 investors at the MCG’s Long Room.

Geoff Harris. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Aaron Francis

The Farrel Meltzer-chaired outfit posted a fourth straight year of double-digit returns, according to managing director Steve Gledden, who spoke of “playing the long game”, and you can be certain those numbers were pure gravy for foundation backer Geoff Harris, the Flight Centre co-founder who sits on the selection committee with former Foster’s boss Trevor O’Hoy and former PFD Food Services director Lindsay Smith. That last name ring a bell? The Smiths flogged 65 per cent of their business to Woolworths in 2020 for a lazy $500m.

Meltzer’s son, Ze’ev, the managing director, opened the proceedings in front of Harris and Smith, but also in the room were Escala Partners’ Travis Pitt and Stuart Kay, Steve Collins from LGT Crestone and Smorgon family scion Norman Smorgon, MD of the Smorgon family office, Escor.

Mains consumed, Meltzer handed over to Gledden for a segment called “around the grounds”, where the MD stood at the lectern and interrogated portfolio company bosses sitting at tables throughout the room, including one manufacturing guy who said he’d been through “Bodyline” with the SB team during the year, but was now back to “flatter track”.

The formal proceedings done by 9.30pm, those kicking on moved across the road for “second innings” drinks at a Harris-owned pile that the rich lister calls Gate 8, a metaphorical addition to the seven entry points of the MCG and where Harris Capital, the family office, is ­domiciled.

Mired for years in planning objections, the seven-storey building opened last month – but not without complaints from neighbours. With them in mind, we hear the round of beverages consumed on the building’s rooftop came to their conclusion by midnight.

Super stupor

Troubled spirits maker Top Shelf, of cratering share price, negative earnings and repeated cap raisings, seems to have had some trouble paying staff their superannuation.

Margin Call hears the tax office has been writing to some employees informing them of a lump-sum payment deposited into their superannuation accounts – not from Top Shelf but from the ATO, suggesting the possibility of missed payments.

“If your employer does not pay your minimum superannuation guarantee amount on time and to the right fund, they must pay the superannuation guarantee charge to us,” the ATO wrote to one Top Shelf employee.

We understand they’re not the only worker to receive a letter of this kind. Top Shelf told Margin Call that it was contacted by the ATO and asked to review its super payments for the FY23 period, which it did with the help of the accountants at BDO, identifying late payments and interest owed, which it’s since paid back. “The ATO has not subsequently requested any further information from the company in relation to this matter and the company considers the matter to be closed,” it said.

Top Shelf’s share price has plummeted from $2.21 per share in 2020 to just 4c at the close on Thursday. It’s also lost board directors John Selak, Philip Baldock and Stephen Grove over the past month.

Not all bad news, however. Company results for FY24 saw underlying EBITDA lift by more than 50 per cent. The result? Negative $10m.