John Atkinson’s abiding interest in the legend of King Arthur and the court of Camelot had a less than fairy tale ending with the High Court ordering removal of daughter Claire as trustee of his family trust.
Mr Atkinson died in 2019. Most of his assets were held in a family trust: the Tolemac Trust; an anagram of Camelot. Trust assets included holdings of gold and silver coins and bullion plus properties in the Nelson area held in themed names: Camelot West, Camelot City Retreat, Camelot Island Retreat and Camelot Country Retreat.
As trust settlor, he left a ‘memorandum of wishes’ setting out his preferences as to how the surviving trustees should distribute trust assets on his death. His four children and his partner were named as beneficiaries.
Tolemac Trustees Ltd is a trustee. After her father’s death, daughter Claire exercised a right of appointment to add herself as trustee.
Disputes between trust beneficiaries over distribution of Tolemac’s assets led to multiple court applications.
The first in 2021, resulted in an out of court settlement agreeing to allocation of the properties. Left undecided was division of the gold and silver.
A second court application, nearly three years later, saw two trust beneficiaries challenge Claire’s actions as trustee. They alleged she was improperly profiting as trustee and was planning to depart from Mr Atkinson’s wishes in the final distribution of trust assets, by making an unequal distribution of the gold and silver to balance the unequal values of properties already distributed. Strict compliance with his ‘memorandum of wishes’ would see only three of his four children sharing in this final distribution.
The High Court was told of anger that Claire had spirited away trust gold bullion, supposedly now being held in safe custody by an un-named third party in Auckland.
There was also anger that Claire had signed a trust resolution paying herself $24,000 for services as trustee. This resolution was dated prior to the 2021 out-of-court settlement, but was not disclosed to fellow beneficiaries until a much later date. The court was told Claire has since repaid the money.
Justice Isac removed Claire as trustee. Several beneficiaries no longer had any confidence in her actions as trustee. She had improperly exercised trust powers for her own benefit by signing the resolution awarding herself $24,000. Delaying disclosure of this resolution to beneficiaries was wrong. She was failing in her duties as trustee by not including fellow trustee, Tolemac Trustees, in decisions about storage of the coins and bullion.
Justice Isac ordered notice of the court order removing Claire as trustee be served on both Tolemac Trustees and the third party currently holding trust precious metals.
Companies Office filings record Tolemac Trustees is currently controlled by Nelson accountant Robin Whalley.
Cain v. Tolemac Trust – High Court (28.03.24)
24.079