Inside man Oliver Curtis wants out
Sydney society white-collar criminal Oliver Curtis, husband of high-profile publicist Roxy Jacenko, will today appeal against his insider trading conviction in a bid to clear his name and return to his family.
The 31-year-old formerly Bondi-based businessman has applied for a court order to appear at this morning’s NSW Court of Criminal Appeal hearing in person, with his legal team to be led by one of Australia’s top (and most expensive) lawyers, Bret Walker SC.
Curtis, who has been in jail since June, could make the journey via prison transportation from Cooma where he is behind bars. Otherwise he’ll address the court via video link. We’ll find out soon.
The appeal hearing is expected to run for several hours and may yield a decision on the day, although it’s more likely the panel of three judges reserves its decision.
ASIC’s tough cop on the beat Greg Medcraft has engaged Wendy Abraham QC to act on the regulator’s behalf.
Curtis’s team is expected to present arguments around the materiality of the information that Curtis illegally traded on.
Curtis was sentenced to two years’ jail but is expected to serve half that.
All eyes will be on the court for any appearance by the stylish Jacenko, who dominated coverage during her husband’s midyear trial. What will she wear?
Since Curtis went to jail, Jacenko, who has two young children with her husband, has been battling breast cancer, which was diagnosed just after his guilty verdict.
Jacenko has also maintained a frantic pace developing apartments in Paddington and running her fashion PR business Sweaty Betty.
Credlin to the rescue
Crown chairman Rob Rankin will run tomorrow’s annual meeting for the first time without James Packer, who is in the US on business.
While Hong Kong-based Rankin trips around the world for Packer, the Crown chair is having trouble flogging his redundant harbourfront apartment in Double Bay.
The real estate’s been on the market for almost five months at $4.95 million. He’s still holds the historic Woodlands mansion on Wollaroy Road in Woollahra.
His wife Paula Bopf controls the couple’s Palm Beach home.
Meanwhile, as the China scandal consumes the Crown gaming business, it’s not clear what role — if any — Packer’s new hire Peta Credlin is playing.
She’s not exactly close to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, so it’s a good thing that Packer is close to the minister, whose Perth territory the Crown board will venture into tomorrow for the company’s annual meeting.
Not that Credlin has been idle. In addition to her Sky News appearances, and writing her Sunday Telegraph column, the newbie at Packer’s Consolidated Press has also set up a vehicle for her post-political affairs: PLMC Consulting (a la Peta-Louise Mary Credlin). The company is registered to her Barton, Canberra, address. She’s the sole director and shareholder.
Her husband, former Liberal Party federal director, now consultant Brian Loughnane established his own vehicle, Coorheen, long ago.
Bathing in celebrity
It was hard to recognise him with all those clothes on. But, yes, that was Budgie Nine member Tim Yates in the audience of Aunty’s Q&A on Monday night. Host Tony Jones and his panel were in Melbourne’s Docklands to shoot the show.
Watching on was Liberal Party member Yates. Impressively, the 29-year-old IT worker kept his shirt and pants on for the show’s full 90 minutes.
Yates, who less than a fortnight ago was in a jail in Kuala Lumpur, is the son of former consul-general in Tripoli, Libya, and now trade commissioner in Fukuoka, Japan, Tom Yates.
The Swinburne uni graduate — who was a recruit, rather than organiser, of the Malaysian trip — is also the nephew of former Macbanker, then Packer exec, now Myer family rep and Liberal fundraiser Peter Yates.
Yates didn’t ask a question at the show. But he clearly enjoys the political cut and thrust.
He was active at the last federal election, handing out how-to-vote cards for unsuccessful Liberal candidate for Melbourne Philip Lui, who is now running for Melbourne City Council.
Libs watch their space
Liberal Party thief Damien Mantach might be behind bars for stealing $1.55 million from Michael Kroger’s Victorian branch, but officials are still dealing with the financial way forward in the southern state.
State director Simon Frost is believed to be finalising a proposal to rationalise his team’s use of space at the party’s 104 Exhibition Street headquarters. The plan is to rent out more space to generate fresh funding for the division.
Earlier this year the state branch was forced to take out a $2m overdraft on its CBD home to fund its electoral ambitions, but has decided it will not sell the building. That’s despite receiving several offers in the order of $20m.
The Vic Libs already rent out two floors. At ground level its tenants are Subway and Flight Centre, while level four is rented by Tolarno Galleries, one of the preferred hanging spaces for Kevin Andrews’s favourite photographer, Bill Henson.
Now the plan is to rent out a further three levels by squeezing the party’s operations into two rather than the five floors it currently occupies.
Muted defence of BCA
Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger has been expansive in his criticism of Jennifer Westacott’s Business Council of Australia, saying the business lobby was “20 years out of date” and should be abolished.
Kroger has forcibly argued that the BCA did not do enough to help the Turnbull government sell its company tax policy during the federal election campaign.
Keeping with their spectacular broadcasted falling-out a few years ago, Kroger’s former political soulmate Peter Costello disagreed with that interpretation in front of a room of journalists at a Walkley Awards lunch in Sydney yesterday.
“I don’t agree with this argument that somehow the BCA has got to argue the case on behalf of the Liberal Party. The BCA is there to represent business interests. It’s up to members of the Coalition to argue their case,” Costello said.
Not that the former Treasurer was impressed with the policy work done by Westacott’s outfit, particularly during last summer’s tax debate.
“It was their case to come up with a good tax policy,” Costello said. “And I’ve got to say I’m not entirely clear what it was.”
He ain’t heavy
BCA director and Commonwealth Bank CEO Ian Narev was also on the lunch speaking circuit in Sydney yesterday. And watching on in the Trans-Tasman Business Circle audience was his older brother, Rick Narev, a partner at law firm Addisons.
Back in their New Zealand childhood, Rick used to trick his younger brother out of Matchbox cars, which they both collected. “He instituted a Matchbox car swap day. And I always came out of that swap day with cars worse than the ones I went with,” Ian revealed.
The CBA boss said these days he taps that same cunning mind for an outside opinion.
“(Rick) doesn’t hesitate to tell me what he thinks,” he said.
Rick confirmed that over the years he has been tough on his younger brother. “I knocked him around a lot when he was young,” Rick grinned.
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