Kroger vs Goode: round 2

Victorian Liberal state president Michael Kroger leaves Federal Court in March. Picture: David Geraghty/The Australian.

Victorian Liberal President Michael Kroger is believed to be preparing for round two of his vicious legal battle with Charles Goode over the $70 million Cormack Foundation.

And the first round hasn’t even been decided yet.

The mooted case — which Margin Call understands has been discussed by Kroger’s inner circle — would target three of the Victorian Liberals’ most distinguished servants: former Business Council of Australia president Hugh Morgan, gentlemanly stockbroker John Calvert-Jones and their fellow Melbourne Club member Goode, the former chair of ANZ.

From what we understand, the discussed legal strategy would be as vicious as it would be personal.

It would also add to the millions of dollars already spent on the unresolved battle with Cormack, the Liberals’ biggest donor.

Clearly we weren’t wrong in noting that federal court Justice Jonathan Beach’s impending Cormac decision on Thursday — now only five sleeps away — would be far from the end the blue blooded family feud.

Both Team Cormack and Team Kroger are braced for a mixed result on Thursday.

A possible outcome would have shares previously held by Morgan and Calvert-Jones given to the Liberal Party.

That would still leave a controlling 75 per cent of the shares with Goode and his fellow Cormack directors.

And it wouldn’t grant the Liberals any seats on the board.

Melbourne Club sources suggest, in such an outcome, the Liberals board representation on Cormack would only come about after Kroger was replaced as President.

Team Kroger has a different idea.

Buoyed by Goode’s Federal Court admission of a conflict of interest between his duties as a Liberal trustee and as a Cormack director, the Kroger camp has discussed a second legal case.

Its essence: get Goode.

President Kroger is believed to have told his inner circle that winning control of Morgan and Calvert-Jones’s shares would put the Liberals in striking distance of the $70m. But it would require a second legal case.

So while the Liberals did drop their direct case for Cormack’s assets, make no mistake — Kroger wants the lot. He’s just trying to get the shares first.

It isn’t clear that the party would give Kroger approval to launch a second legal stoush, especially so close to Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy’s showdown in November with Labor Premier Daniel Andrews at the Victorian state election.

But, ominously for Goode, Kroger’s stonking re-election as president in April shows he is not without supporters.