Lax payment authority at Bill Express
Staff of the satellite internet provider Activ8me were again implicated by a witness appearing at the Supreme Court of Victoria hearings brought by PPB, the liquidators of Bill Express.PPB is seeking the rationale for, and whereabouts of, a number of large payments that left the Bill Express bank account prior to the company entering administration in July 2008.Tania Bianchin, an administrative manager of Bill Express, spent Friday in the witness box being pressed by barrister Peter Bick on her role in approving a series of loans and payments made in early 2008.Bianchin was named by Bill Express directors in a letter sent to the liquidator as the person responsible for representing Bill Express' interests in the complex web of different companies that made up the Bill Express empire. Bianchin is the spouse of Bill Express' chief executive Ian Christiansen.Earlier evidence given to the court indicated that payments in and out of the company were "run by" Bianchin on a daily basis. Bianchin denied this but confirmed to the court that she was "in charge of administration" for Bill Express and that she was a signatory to the Bill Express bank account."I looked after things for Bill Express," said Bianchin.Associate Justice Gardiner allowed Bick to repeatedly press Bianchin about a number of unusually large "round number" payments of $6.76 million out of Bill Express in February, March and April 2008 and for which the liquidator cannot locate invoices.Bick also pressed Bianchin over $10.2 million in promissory notes from DF Deutsche Forfait AG that Bianchin co-signed with Bill Express director Julian Little in early 2008, shortly before the large round number payments left Bill Express' bank account."Did you care if Bill Express could repay the promissory notes when you signed?" asked Bick repeatedly, to which Bianchin replied that she didn't understand.Bianchin was warned by Bick to give truthful answers and was asked if she knew what perjury meant before Bick also quizzed her about $43 million that was paid out of Bill Express in 2007 to Technology Business Systems, a company apparently under the control of Peter Couper, now an executive with APN, which trades as Activ8me. TBS has a subsidiary company in Singapore.Bianchin eventually admitted that she had given her electronic signature codes for the Bill Express bank account to another accounts staff member, Tracy Wegener, who now also works with Couper at APN."I trusted Tracy Wegener," said Bianchin."I signed things in good faith and I believed the system worked."Bick put to the witness that internal financial control at Bill Express was a shambles; that the CFO of Bill Express was excluded from control of the finances and that Peter Couper moved money in and out of the group at will.Previously the court was told that computers, and other assets of the failed Bill Express group, ended up with and are currently being used by APN/Activ8me.