Legal proceedings between two Australian businessmen have raised the possibility that Ansbacher accounts were used for insider dealing
Ansbacher accounts may have been used for insider trading in Australian shares its has emerged from legal proceedings between two Australian businessmen.
A prominent Belfast-born Perth businessman, Mr Danny Hill, is suing Mr Ron Woss for Aus $7.5 million (€4.19 million) regarding a May 1997 share deal.
Mr Woss was named in the Ansbacher report as the owner of an account used for share trading in Australia and it is understood Mr Hill is investigating whether the share dealing involved the use of the Ansbacher account.
The account may have been closed, however, at the time of the share sale.
Mr Hill has alleged that Mr Woss, during a brief tenure as a director of Australian company St Barbara Mines, sold 10 million St Barbara shares to to Westgold Resources - another Australian Mining Company - when he, Mr Woss, had price-sensitive information.
The shares were sold to Westgold for Aus$7.2 million. The St Barbara share price subsequently fell sharply. When the shares were sold they were worth less than Aus$1 million.
Westgold is alleging that a series of financial concerns were outlined to the St Barbara board in April 1997.
Mr Woss was at the meeting but has said he did not receive the price-sensitive information until five days after he sold the shares to Westgold.
"The writ is a joke," Mr Woss has been quoted as saying.
Mr Hill (60) is a multimillionaire investor and professional litigant who buys into companies before initiating litigation that he hopes will result in major gains for the companies.
The Ansbacher inspectors found Mr Woss was the owner of an Ansbacher account used for trading in Australian shares.
This was despite the expressed view of a Dublin businessman, Mr Sam Field-Corbett, who helped manage the account, that Mr Woss was not its beneficial owner.
Mr Woss did not respond to inquiries from the inspectors.
The account was in the name of a Cayman entity called the Diamond Trust.
It involved "quite a lot of buying and selling of shares, in Australia mainly", according to the report. Mr Field-Corbett sent weekly reports to Australia regarding the account.
Large sums of money were passing through the account from the 1980s, according to a Guinness & Mahon document quoted in the inspectors' report. The account is understood to have been active up to 1996.
Mr Woss was separately named in the inspectors' report regarding the affairs of the property developer, Mr John Byrne. Mr Woss was a director of UK company Tepbrook Properties and of Australian company Danstar Holdings, both of which were owned by a Cayman trust established by Mr Byrne.
The Australian company has since been removed from the trust structure.
The inspectors said Mr Woss had a close connection with the late Mr Des Traynor.
They said the reasons for Mr Woss being on the boards of companies associated with Mr Byrne was not known but did not appear to be connected with any ownership.
