Oliver Curtis and Roxy Jacenko dine out during court break

Illustration: Peter Nicholson.

When the going gets tough, the tough go to lunch.

So it was for accused insider trader Oliver Curtis and his ­publicity-focused wife Roxy ­Jacenko yesterday during a fortuitous delay to the first day of his Supreme Court trial courtesy of the NSW Fire Brigade.

The smell of smoke in the roof of the building sent the couple, their legal team and buff minder scuttling to nearby Fix St James for coffee out front, which then segued into a more discreet lunch inside.

The pair bunkered in on the restaurant’s mezzanine level safe from the eyes of the ravenous media pack, with their barely contained bodyguard (who looked like a rugby league forward on Dally M Awards night) keeping a watchful eye on his ­charges.

As it happens, we were lunching on the lower floor.

After a six-year wait, courtroom proceedings were eventually allowed to begin, where Curtis again pleaded “not guilty” to insider trading.

While Curtis went for a two-button suit, blue tie and tasselled brogues for day one of his criminal proceedings, Roxy couldn’t resist just a hint of designer pizzazz for her outing, with her low-key, high-neck black frock, cinched at the waist with a Louis Vuitton belt. Stunning!

Past and present

Just up the way at Chifley’s ­sashimi den Azuma, ANZ chairman David “who gives a” Gonski was in his alcove with Transfield Holdings’ Guido ­Belgiorno-Nettis, who Gonski ­replaced late last year as president of the Art Gallery of NSW’s board of trustees.

It’s an important period for the Michael Brand-run arts institution as it tries to raise $450 million (and public support) to build its new wing and glass function centre, which has the working title “Sydney Modern”.

Belgiorno-Nettis will be well pleased he and his brother Luca have now completed their separation from detention centre ­operator Broadspectrum, formerly Transfield Services.

The engineering and locking-people-up business their dad Franco founded was forced to change its name late last year, after the Belgiorno-Nettis family decided it no longer wanted its private company Transfield Holdings to be associated with the detention centres.

That followed the sale of its final 11.3 per cent stake in the company now known as Broadspectrum in 2014.

No mas, maybe

Staying with the locking-people-up business, the future operation of Australia’s offshore detention centres is as clear as Nauruan phosphate — despite the dogged rhetoric of Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.

On April 15 — before Canberra went into caretaker mode — Dutton’s department sent out tender documents to the two companies asked to bid to run the Manus and Nauru detention centres. The two firms are believed to be the now Ferrovial-controlled Broadspectrum (chaired by Diane Smith-Gander until the Spaniards slay the bull, so to speak) and the Britain-headquartered international prison operator Serco.

Bids are due from the pair next month, however bidders are expecting the issuing of fresh tender docos once uncertainty around the Manus operation is resolved — one way or the other.

By then Ferrovial boss Santiago Olivares will probably have the reins of the company, though he’s suggested it doesn’t intend to re-tender for the $2.2 billion contract. Word is the Spaniard isn’t bluffing.

Lucy in the lead

While Malcolm Turnbull was keeping it real with Lindsay MP Fiona Scott in western Sydney yesterday, wife Lucy was on a plane bound for Jerusalem, leaving our PM without his chief adviser for a week.

That means the multi-millionaire will either have to choose his own tie or rely solely on consigliere Arthur Sinodinos before tomorrow night’s people’s forum with Bill Shorten and Joe Average also in the west, to be moderated by Sky’s David Speers.

Lucy and NAB director Jillian Segal are leading a group that will spend three days in Jerusalem on a female trade delegation organised by the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce, and then the same in Tel Aviv. The mission is sure to provide terrific photo ops for the PM’s wife that should resonate with the good folk of Wentworth.

Organisers are still waiting to hear whether Lucy will sit down with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. The visit will coincide with Israel’s Day of Independence and comes six months after the PM met with Bibi at a climate change conference in Paris.

We can reveal billionaire Gretel Packer was to join the entourage but pulled out a few months ago. Her brother James has a house neighbouring his good mate Bibi, outside Tel Aviv. Could the casino billionaire join Lucy and her ladies for breakfast at
Dr. Shakshuka?

Danger offshore

The offshore past of Symon Brewis-Weston, the boss of listed financial services business Flexigroup, is back in focus after the Yellowstone geyser-sized leak of client info from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. Brewis-Weston, the hubby of Ten newsreading legend Sandra Sully, isn’t among the latest data dump. But his association with a trust in the Cook Islands pops up among files released by Gerard Ryle’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the organisation behind the Panama Papers.

Brewis-Weston is recorded as serving as investment adviser to the Sumiati Trust from 2006 onwards — a period when he also was working for Ian Narev’s Commonwealth Bank.

If that’s not tangled enough for you, we’ll add that the trust is recorded as being settled by Indonesian businessman Sumiati Liauw for the benefit of his family. All clear then?

Bok-ing along

The Michelle Jablko-led Melbourne team at investment bank Greenhill & Co showed visiting New York boss Scott Bok a good time on Monday night in the southern capital as part of the big chief’s lightning visit Down Under.

Even the investment bank’s Sydney-based Aussie co-head Roger Feletto made it down to join the crew (including one new hire) at Victor Liong’s modern Asian fusion nosh house Lee Ho Fook.

Bok — who has now departed Australia for Greenhill HQ in New York — presides over a team of managing directors around the world, of which a mere 4 per cent are women. Local co-head Jablko is one of just three females execs amid a gaggle of 68.

Despite the taint of the firm’s recent work on Slater & Gordon’s disastrous $1.2bn takeover of Quindell in Britain, the mood at Liong’s was said to be upbeat. Perhaps chalk it down to indomitable American optimism — or the happy distraction of Peter Wilson’s mosaic rooftop jacuzzi.