Chronology
1997 LMIM established in Australia.
Late 2009 LMIM flagship fund, the FMIF frozen.
27th October 2012 Sydney Morning Herald reports, in alarm, 217M AUD of the 370M AUD MPF is committed to one project, The Maddison Estate.
4th March 2013 ABC's Four Corners transmits its 'Betrayal of Trust' program.
19th March 2013 LMIM call in FTI as administrators.
12th April 2013 KordaMentha and Calibre Capital Ltd appointed as MPF Trustees.
Early June 2013 some advisors with clients invested in LMIM announce they are working together in clients interest and call themselves the Advisors Commitee for Investors (ACI).
1st August 2013 creditors pass resolution to place LMIM into liquidation. David Clout and Associates appointed Liquidators.
8th August 2013 Queensland Supreme Court orders winding up of FMIF appointing David Whyte as receiver.
16th September 2013 KordaMentha report that returns to MPF investors are likely to be 5 cents in the dollar before expenses plus anything recovered by legal action.
27th September 2013 Peter Drake's passport is seized and assets frozen.
29th September 2013 reports emerge that Drakes Mermaid Beach property has sold for 7.35M AUD.
18th October 2013 KordaMentha announce their intention to apply for MPF winding up orders against the backdrop of a forecast return of 5 cents in the dollar before expenses plus anything recovered by legal action.
4th December 2013 David Whyte at BDO re-forecasts the return from FMIF liquidation at 17 cents in the dollar.
9th November 2014 The Mail on Sunday becomes the first UK national publication to cover the LM debacle in attempt to illustrate the dangers of future loosening of UK pension rules.
20th November 2014 ASIC announce commencement of civil proceedings against LM directors.
22nd December 2014 MPF Responsible Entity Korda Mentha seek bankruptcy verdict against Drake as part of proceedings in the Brisbane Supreme Court to recover a $22m loan from the fund to Drake that has never been repaid.
9th January 2015 Peter Charles Drake is declared bankrupt and the Worrells appointed as the bankruptcy trustee.
Feb / March 2015 LMIVC present their analysis of Korda Mentha financial data in two groundbreaking articles, The 10 Awful, Pug Ugly Steps to LM Investors Destruction and The MPF Death Slide. The MPF Death Slide demonstrates the indisputable Ponzi profile of the fund for it's final four to five years and provides links to marketing evidence (also provided to ASIC) illustrating the complete lie at the the heart of this massive Au$350m fraud.
9th March 2015, The Australian reports that Peter Charles Drake's bankruptcy statement claims his assets total Au$146,000 of which his Fiji house is Au$126,000 (disputed) and he is in debt to the tune of Au$337m.
24th March 2015, ASIC banned Mr Drake from providing any financial services until 11th January 2018, being the remaining period of his bankruptcy.
15 - 26th June 2015 ten days of public examination of Peter Charles Drake, his co - directors and FMIF auditors Ernst & Young take place in Brisbane under David Whyte's (of BDO) co-ordination. (Individuals summoned: LM - Peter Drake, Eghard Van Der Hoven, Francene Mulder, Grant Fischer, Simon Tickner and Lisa Darcy. EY - Paula McLuskie, Mandy Downes and Rebecca Burrows).
26th August 2015 Justice Daubney of the Supreme Court of Queensland, Australia directed that Korda Mentha would be justified in prosecuting two items (LStyle, BWood) the process of which shall be resourced under the litigation funding agreement struck with IMF Bentham the draft for which had been made available to MPF investors earlier in August and handed to the court on the 18th August 2015.
19 - 30th October 2015 a further ten days of LM public examination, under David Whyte's (of BDO) co-ordination, that centre around audit of compliance and include interaction with David Monaghan, Shelley Chalmers and Angelo Venardos.
2nd February 2016, His Honour Edelman J set the [ ASIC 'Civil Action Against LM and Former Directors' ] matter down for trial for four weeks from 29 August 2016 to 23 September 2016, and scheduled the next directions hearing for 26 February 2016.
23rd May 2016 Korda Mentha recognise LMIVC recovery efforts and point MPF investors to the WRCRA page in their 16th update to investors.
29th August 2016 - 23rd September 2016 set aside in the Australian High Court calendar for the case brought by ASIC against LM directors.
25th October 2016 set date for closing submissions.
14th December 2016, almost 3 months after the closing date of the period set aside for trial of the ASIC case against LM directors, ASIC report nothing of the result or onward process, apart from revealing the closing submission date of 25th October 2016, at their web news location.
23rd December 2016, in what appears to be a complete collapse of ASIC's case against LM Directors, Judge Justice James Edelman found the evidence provided by ASIC's key expert witness, Hugh Woolley, as evasive and preposterous and ultimately judged the defendants NOT to have breached their duties as directors! A summary is provided here by Sarah Danckert writing for the Sydney Morning Herald.
May 2022, the only post liquidation returns to MPF investors are made by Korda Mentha and are reported by KM to represent 1.45 cents in the dollar. If the MPF attracted a total of A$400m of investors monies and 1.45% of that (A$5.8m) was available for distribution post liquidation (per update 25) the effectiveness of KM operations on which A$6.4m had been expended can be represented by a recovery to spend to recovery ratio of 0.91.
(The one and only distribution according to update 25 represented 1.45 cents in the dollar of ones investment amount if no currency exchanges were required. Personal returns after conversion initially from gbp to Australian dollar and finally from Australian dollar to gbp produced a typical return figure of 1.19 pence in the pound.)