Allan
Hawkins faces a potential ban from consumer financing after the Court of Appeal
refused to overturn convictions against his finance companies Budget Loans and
Evolution Finance for breaches of the Fair Trading Act.
Jailed in the 1990s for
his role in former sharemarket darling Equiticorp, Mr Hawkins later moved into
consumer financing with Budget Loans Ltd and Evolution Finance Ltd buying
distressed debt from other financiers and looking to make a buck by chasing bad
loans. These companies were convicted on
106 charges of breaching the Fair Trading Act following allegations they seized
mortgaged goods without authority, claimed interest in excess of their
entitlement and misrepresented terms of loans offered as refinancing. Nineteen further charges were dismissed but
reinstated on appeal.
The two finance companies
said they had been hard done by. They
might have been sailing close to the wind in their commercial practices, they
said, but argued the law is it then stood was ambiguous. They asked the Court of Appeal for a chance
to relitigate the question. The Commerce
Commission has indicated it will use the current convictions as grounds to have
management banned from consumer financing.
A second round of appeals was refused by the Court of Appeal.
Budget
Loans Ltd v. Commerce Commission, Evolution Finance Ltd v. Commerce Commission
– Court of Appeal (23.11.17)
18.006