Lawyers, developers and business figures linked to notorious property spruiker Henry Kaye face their first public grilling over the land banking scams into which mum and dad investors tipped as much as $100 million.
Liquidators on behalf of the corporate regulator will publicly examine 10 key players behind two failed development schemes proposed for Melbourne's outer west and Bendigo and were part of a network land-banking scams across Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, revealed by The Age in early 2015.
Both projects were wound up by the court in 2016.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is now seeking to untangle the complex web of companies, trusts, loans and properties behind the schemes as part of its ongoing probe of land banking.
Among those to be examined are senior lawyers from the firm formerly known as Clamenz Evans Ellis which is also linked to the alleged Plutus tax fraud syndicate scam in NSW along with Adam Cranston, the son of Australian Tax Office deputy commissioner Michael Cranston.
Clamenz's Sydney-based tax lawyer Dev Menon was one of 10 people arrested this month over an allegedly fraudulent scheme that skimmed $165 million in taxes through a network of payroll businesses.
Other Clamenz lawyers summonsed for public examination in land-banking case are Daniel Clarke from Sydney, and Darren Eliau and Ben Skinner from Melbourne.
Clamenz Evans Ellis lawyers were central to the land banking operation including as directors of key companies involved.
Kaye's sister Julia Feldman, who often oversaw the marketing of the schemes, as well as long-time Kaye associates lawyer Colin Adno and project manager Michael Grochowski also face questioning.
So too does Sydney accountant Ian Stephens. He was a director of one of the Melbourne-based land-banking companies and also is a director with Adam Cranston of the private equity company Synep in Sydney. Mr Stephens has not been charged in relation to the alleged Plutus fraud and there is no suggestion he was in any way involved.
Kaye - whose role in the scams was hidden behind secretive trusts and financial deals - has not yet been called for public examination. However, the court has also ordered lawyers to produce an array of documents including communications with lenders to the projects, which would include Kaye.
The Belarus-born Kaye amassed a fortune from get-rich seminars in the early 2000s. His wealth education empire collapsed in 2003 owing 3500 investors up to $60 million.
Some of that money is believed to have been sunk into Melbourne's sprawling western fringe where Kaye and his associates worked up their new strategy for fleecing gullible real estate investors - high-risk "options" on yet-to-be-developed housing projects.
In manipulative seminars from 2011 to 2014 they flogged glamour development projects like Foscari (an "iconic architectural masterpiece") and Veneziane (the "Toorak of the West").
Years after it was first marketed, the Foscari site in Truganina remained a disused rubbish dump, the Veneziane site paddocks in Melton.
In April 2016 ASIC succeeded in having two of the land-banking companies wound up, arguing the companies were insolvent.
In his findings Federal Court Justice Beach identified Kaye as a beneficiary behind the Foscari scheme, reaping up to 60 per cent interest from loans he had made via a company called Bourke & Queen Mortgages. Clamenz lawyer Darren Eliau is listed as an original director of the company.
Investors sunk tens of millions of dollars into the schemes, much of which now appears lost in an impenetrable maze of secretive trust accounts. The land-banking scams highlight the widespread use of trusts in Australia to both avoid tax and reduce transparency.
The public examination of the 10 witnesses later this year was sought by liquidators Nicholas Martin and Craig Crosbie on behalf of ASIC.
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