Mike
Pero must repay at least $2.1 million unlawfully taken from his eponymous
company plus interest after unilaterally increasing remuneration as CEO without
authority. Attempts to dig deeper into
his dealings with the Mike Pero group were refused by the High Court.
New owners of Mike Pero
Mortgages Ltd, Mark Collins and Sherman Ma, took to the High Court alleging
former CEO Mike Pero had not come clean over the amount of money wrongly taken
from their joint venture company: MPRE Ltd. In late 2016, the
court ruled Mr Pero must return all remuneration in excess of $200,000 per
annum wrongfully approved in 2012-2014.
He passed company resolutions on his sole signature. These resolutions were invalid.
The High Court was told
Mr Pero provided evidence of $2.1 million to be repaid. The new owners said they needed more
detail. They suspect Mr Pero, when in
charge of the company, received other undisclosed benefits. In particular, they allege he may have used
company credit cards to pay personal expenses, received ‘back-handers’ from
Pero franchisees, employed family members on non-commercial terms or met their
personal expenses from corporate banking accounts. Justice Katz said these issues were not
raised in the earlier 2016 court hearing.
If they cannot be resolved by agreement, new court proceedings may be
required to sort out the facts, she said.
Court permission was refused for the new owners to trawl through bank
accounts of trusts and other entities associated with Mr Pero.
The current position is
that Mr Pero is required to repay at least $2.38 million: the $2.1 million
agreed plus interest.
Mike
Pero Mortgages Ltd v. Mike Pero – High Court (10.10.17)
17.134