by Susannah Moran, The Australian

MILLIONS of dollars that disappeared from Rene Rivkin’s Swiss bank accounts after he died could be recovered following a court victory in Britain.

Rivkin’s trustee in bankruptcy, Warner Kugel’s Anthony Warner, has gained control of two offshore structures known as Laira, despite Benno Hafner, Rivkin’s former Swiss lawyer, trying to block the move in the British High Court.

The Laira structures and related offshore bank accounts received $27 million in share sale proceeds from the Offset Alpine Printing Group. Mr Warner can now access Laira’s bank accounts and trace the financial transactions related to the accounts. Mr Warner said yesterday he was now considered the legal owner of the accounts and would conduct further investigations in Switzerland and in other tax havens where accounts are held.

“We have been working on this for more than two years, it is a major breakthrough,” Mr Warner said.
“There is no longer any need to initiate further proceedings to fight for the control of these offshore structures and we can now focus on asset tracing and recovery.”

But Mr Warner’s victory does not mean the Australian Taxation Office or the Australian Securities and Investments Commission can access the details of how much was deposited and withdrawn from the bank accounts, or by whom.

In earlier, related court proceedings, Mr Hafner’s lawyers argued against Mr Warner gaining access to documents related to the Laira account, saying they could be passed to the ATO or ASIC. The judge ruled the Australian authorities could not gain access to the documents.

They have been investigating the Offset Alpine transactions since it was reported in 2003 that stockbroker Rivkin had told Swiss investigators that he, former ALP politician Graham Richardson and businessman Trevor Kennedy were the true owners of a secret $27 million parcel of shares. The money had been sent to Switzerland and the owners not identified.

Both Mr Kennedy and Mr Richardson have denied ever owning the shares. All three were issued with revised tax bills relating to the shares. Mr Richardson last year settled a court case with the tax office. Mr Kennedy is still in a legal dispute with the tax office over the revised tax assessments issued to him.