Sacked Auckland Airport worker's assets frozen, alleged fraud may be bigger than $1.84M

Wednesday 2nd March 2016

A former Auckland International Airport staffer sacked over "several unauthorised transactions" has had a freezing order imposed and extended over her assets, with investigations showing the amounts are likely to be more than the $1.84 million figure mooted last month.

In a recently released Feb. 18 judgment, Employment Court Chief Judge Graeme Colgan lifted suppression of two earlier judgments, while retaining name suppression for the person, and raised the amount covered by freezing orders to $1.84 million from $503,000.

"The case has had some limited publicity over the last couple of days, including identifying the applicant and the very broad nature of the employment relationship problem between the applicant and the first respondent," the judgment said. "There is respectable evidence that investigations have discovered that the amounts at issue are larger than first thought and probably exceed that figure of $1.84 million."

The day before the judgment, Auckland Airport told the stock exchange it had dismissed a non-executive staffer and called in police after finding a series of unauthorised transactions totalling $1.84 million. It hired EY to investigate and also said it was pursuing civil action to claw back the funds.

The judge also ordered the person to disclose various assets in New Zealand and abroad, "with full particularity the nature of those assets, their whereabouts, whether they are held in her name or jointly with any other person or nominee or otherwise."

ASB Bank and Westpac Banking Corp's New Zealand subsidiary were also named as respondents in the suit. The judge ordered the former staff to disclose any term deposits she held with Westpac, and also gave a direction to ASB to provide bank statements for an account from Jan. 1 2008 through to Jan. 31 2013.

Judge Colgan also extended an exemption on suppression orders to include the Serious Fraud Office after being told police might or had already referred the matter to the white collar crime investigator.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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