New chapter in long-running Seven-Tim Worner affair

Perpetual Loyal sails up the Derwent to win the 2016 Sydney-Hobart race.

Directors of Kerry Stokes’s Seven West Media board have again been blindsided by damning new material concerning embattled chief executive Tim Worner and a senior female executive at the media group.

Margin Call understands the Seven West board was informed of the latest scandalous material last week after it began trickling out in the media.

However, it is believed that some of Stokes’s trusted lieu­tenants — including Seven ­commercial director Bruce ­McWilliam — had been aware of the material relating to the female executive for some time.

Bruce McWilliam at home in Sydney’s Point Piper. Picture: Renee Nowytarger.

It is understood the Seven board has yet to meet to discuss the revelations and consider its implications for the day-to-day functioning of the business and for Worner’s future.

The revelations are the latest scandal at the listed media company triggered by former Seven executive assistant Amber Harrison, who in December went public about her affair with Worner and subsequent years-long legal battle with the company.

That legal war is being fought in the Supreme Court in Sydney and the Federal Court in Melbourne, with leading barrister Julian Burnside acting for Harrison.

Seven this week obtained a sweeping suppression order from the NSW Supreme Court blocking all reporting of the ­material, its contents and the identity of the Sydney executive.

The company repeatedly declined to comment yesterday, citing the Supreme Court order.

Non-executive directors including stockbroker David Evans and iiNet founder ­Michael Malone declined to comment, as did Gilbert & Tobin partner Sheila McGregor, who resigned from the Seven West board in February amid the Worner scandal.

Seven director Jeff Kennett, the former Victorian premier, did not return calls.

Kennett, McGregor and Malone were not told of Worner’s affair and the group’s ongoing legal battle with Harrison when they joined as directors in mid-2015. As was revealed by The Weekend Australian in February, they learned about the relationship only after Harrison told the media in December.

The army of lawyers overseen by McWilliam, Seven’s key legal mind, will return to court next Friday for further hearings about the injunction over the new, explosive material.

McWilliam declined to comment.

Cup tilt overboard

So-called celebrity accountant Anthony Bell wasn’t bluffing when he told amassed Australian and international media that he had “detailed plans” for something “new and hot in sailing” after he took out line honours in the last Sydney-Hobart yacht race.

Bell has long harboured a dream to sail in one-time billionaire Alan Bond’s 1980s wake and bring the prestigious America’s Cup back to Australia.

Margin Call can reveal that well before Bell sailed out of Sydney Harbour on his 100-footer Perpetual Loyal in December, the accountant had already moved on to his next ambitious plan: contesting the America’s Cup in 2021.

The accountant and his associates — famous and otherwise — had even workshopped a potential launch of his international campaign to happen on Australia Day — January 26, 2017.

But then everything changed for Bell. Days after sailing into Hobart’s Constitution Dock a winner, he became the subject of an AVO, which was imposed on behalf of his estranged wife Kelly Landry, the former presenter of Nine’s travel show Getaway.

Kelly Landry and Anthony Bell in 2015. Picture Photographer: Chloe Paul

The AVO sunk the “new and hot” America’s Cup tilt — or at least its Australia Day launch.

Bell’s tawdry marriage breakdown — with lawyers sledging Landry — was understandably judged to be not the right backdrop for firing up the nation to support his latest rich and famous passion project.

As we revealed yesterday, even Bell’s 2016 Sydney-Hobart triumph wasn’t without its complications.

The accountant’s decision once again to contest the blue-ribbon Aussie yacht race with his super maxi Perpetual Loyal was made at the last minute after he had broken down in the race in 2015 and 2014.

We understand the secondary sponsor of the yacht — James Packer’s Crown Resorts — offered “support” rather than money, while major sponsor Geoff Lloyd’s listed fund manager Perpetual agreed to chip in only pro-rata for the two months of the fourth year that the sponsorship would run.

For the time being, Bell’s self-imposed vow of silence continues as his campaign manager Joe Akacich (better known to sea dogs as “Black Joe”) from Black Pond Marine Consultants goes about selling Perpetual Loyal.

Fittingly, back in the buccaneering 1980s, “Black Joe” was a skipper for the entrepreneurial Bond, the billionaire who brought the America’s Cup back to Oz in 1983 before he was bankrupted and then imprisoned for white-collar crime.

Wouldn’t it be a beautiful thing if “Black Joe” was involved in Bell’s cup tilt? That’s assuming the yachting revival goes ahead on the other side of the accountant’s five-day AVO showdown next month.