Bill Express secretly bankrolled Activ8Me
Former executives associated with failed payments company Bill Express delivered more company documents to liquidators Craig Crosbie and Ian Carlson of PPB yesterday.At a liquidators' examination of company officials held at the Supreme Court of Victoria yesterday the barrister representing PPB, Peter Bick, described the late delivery of documents as "extremely unsatisfactory". One million documents were delivered on Friday under summonses first issued last year.Crosbie and Carlson were appointed administrators of Bill Express two years ago and liquidators in July 2008. The former executives, Sandro Di Donato and Peter Couper, unsuccessfully challenged the summonses in March.Di Donato is the owner of Australian Private Networks which now trades as satellite internet provider Activ8Me. Couper is employed by APN.Activ8me is the largest satellite broadband provider in Australia with more than 23,000 customers. Activ8Me has been the single biggest beneficiary of the Australian government's broadband guarantee for rural and regional areas.Yesterday the former executive director of Bill Express, Julian Little, was quizzed by Bick about millions of dollars in loans, payments and financial transactions that Bill Express and associated listed company OnQ made with APN and another private company owned by Di Donato, TBS Group Pty Ltd.Little was also asked about transactions and payments involving Couper's private company APS and sales of SIM card airtime to listed telecommunications company ETT (now known as Farmworks).Little was presented with OnQ financial accounts showing that a $20 million loan made to TBS was reduced by $8 million dollars to $12 million in the full financial year accounts of 2006. The only paperwork associated with the $8 million line item was a spreadsheet label that read "consolidating loan account to TBS", said Bick. In response Little said he didn't have first-hand knowledge of the transaction.By 2007, the Bill Express loan account to TBS totalled more than $30 million, said Bick. He went on to ask Little why it appeared that Bill Express funds were being channelled through TBS to fund APN's business."Was it discussed at board level why Bill Express was lending $30 million to TBS?" asked Bick."There was a view that it needed to stop," replied Little.Little didn't act to stop the flow of funds and loans to TBS and APN because he knew where the Bill Express money was going, to fund Di Donato's business, and he expected to receive a benefit as a result, suggested Bick."I reject that," said Julian Little, who flew back to his current home in Dubai last night.