Have you received a payment demand in the mail from Force Legal? Do you need some suggestions in dealing with it? This page explains some of their background and how Force Legal operate. Note that this website does not claim to be, nor does it speak on behalf of, Force Legal.
Force Legal was established by business interests connected with the proprietors of private parking company Australian National Car Parks in early 2014. Other interests responsible for the initial setup of Force Legal were business interests connected with the proprietors of debt collection company Australian Recoveries and Collections. Pierre Safi, a solicitor, is the sole director of Force Legal, and Mr Safi’s business interests were also connected with its initial creation.
One of Force Legal’s specialities is the pursing vehicle owners for unpaid private parking fines. Over the years it has acted for a quite number of private companies including:
Australian National Car Parks
Ace Parking
Parking Patrols
PriPark
For example, in the attached letter of demand from Force Legal solicitor Mr Stephen Quartermain, the letter starts off with "We act on behalf of Australian National Car Parks Pty Ltd". The letter is signed at the bottom “Yours faithfully, Force Legal”. After a while, this website started receiving emails from people who Force Legal was chasing for private parking fines. Typically, vehicle owners had received a parking fine from one of the above parking companies. The vehicle owners would initially appeal the payment demand with the parking company (for example, perhaps the owner wasn’t the driver, or the ticket had flipped over on the dashboard). The parking company would then send the owner’s details to Force Legal who in turn would send out a demand in the mail, but this time adding on another $85. For example, if your original parking fine was $88, the letter of demand you would receive from Force Legal would be for $173. At this stage, the people became confused as to what to do next. They had appealed the matter, but instead of getting a response to their appeal from the Parking Company, they got a demand for even more money from Force Legal.
Going back to the legal notice from FL. It is signed by Stephen Quartermain who is, or was at the time, a solicitor employed by Force Legal. The letter begins with "We act on behalf of Australian National Car Parks". Well I personally find that an interesting statement, because Force Legal in reality do more than just act for Australian National Parks. Force Legal are (or were at the time of creating this page) partially owned by business interests connected with Australian National Car Parks. The letter from Force Legal goes on to say "we are instructed that the amounts of $88.00 and $85.00 are outstanding pursuant to clause 4 of the Terms & Conditions, making the total amount due and owing $173". Now, the clause they are referring to in the parking terms and conditions relates to an amount of $85 that ANCP can charge for their lawyers to send a demand to the driver, should the original fine of $88 not be paid. But remember that Australian National Car Parks also had equity in Force Legal. The question is, where does the $85 ultimately go to? I assume that part of the $85 presumably would go to the lawyer who sent the demand out, I assume part might go to Pierre Safi for being the director of the company, but the question is does any of the $85 go to the shareholders of Force Legal, and if so, does any go back to the business interests in Australian National Car Parks?
Force Legal have also pursused unpaid parking payments for "Ace Parking", "Parking Patrols" and "PriPark". Ace Parking and Parking Patrols were in 2010 found by the Supreme Court of Victoria to have engaged in misleading conduct for unfair pursual of people for unpaid parking tickets.
Force Legal – People
Not let’s take a look at the Force Legal website. On their "Our People" page in 2014, it had the pictures and names of four employees:
- Andrew Smith - general manager
- Pierre Joseph Safi - Principal Solicitor
- Edward Davis - Solicitor etdavis@etdlaw.com.au
- Christina Malovic - Law Clerk.
Now Christina and Andrew Smith are the interesting ones. Before working as a legal clerk at Force Legal, Christina used to be an employee of Australian Recoveries and Collections, where she was also responsible for chasing parking fines for Australian National Car Parks and Ace Parking. And Andrew Smith was an Australian Recoveries and Collections director and he too was responsible for chasing parking fines for Australian National Car Parks and Ace Parking.
You will see an email address paymentnotices@forcelegal.com.au on the attached letter of demand from Force Legal. People who sent emails to this address in 2014 said they received replies from Christina Malovich whose email signature said she was a legal clerk for Force Legal. Several people noticed that this was the same Christina Malovic that worked as a legal clerk at Freedman and Gopalan who were Australian National Car Park’s previous lawyers. This shows the close connection between the following three companies in 2014:
Australian National Car Parks
Australian Recoveries and Collections
Force Legal
We are advised that Christina Malovich has left the employ of Force Legal.
One of the shareholders of Force Legal at its inception in 2014, according to documents obtained from ASIC, was a company called VPAC Holdings Pty Ltd. VPAC Holdings listed four directors in 2014:
Paul Gyles
Victor Nudler
Andrew Smith
Craig Brugman
Of these four men, Paul Gyles and Victor Nudler are also directors and shareholders of Australian National Car Parks. The ASIC records also show VPAC Holdings has four shareholders, including Gyles Holdings Pty Ltd and Nudler Holdings Pty Ltd. The address of these two holdings companies is 261 Trafalgar St Annadale, which is also the address of Australian National Car Parks. And the two people who control those two companies are Paul Gyles and Victor Nudler who are directors of Australian National Car Parks and also directors of Australian Recoveries and Collections.
The below diagram shows how the various entities are connected.
ANCP -> Paul Gyles and Victor Nudler
ARC -> Gyles Holdings and Nudler Holdings -> Paul Gyles and Victor Nudler
Force Legal -> VPAC Holdings -> Gyles Holdings and Nudler Holdings -> Paul Gyles and Victor Nudler
The director of Force Legal, Pierre Safi, also controls companies that own shares in Force Legal.
Note also, that in June 2015, Andrew Smith advised us that Force Legal ceased work for Australian Recoveries and Collections, and that a company called Birch and Warner had taken over the contract with Australian Recoveries and Collections.
The best option is to try the NSW Office of Fair Trading. NSW FT have a dedicated member of staff who deals with all private parking matters, and they boast about their success in having private fines cancelled. Quite a large number of people have said after contacting Fair Trading, the parking company agreed to cancel the fine. Note, however, that before Fair Trading will look at your complaint, you need to have already tried appealing to the car park company concerned. So if you have not already, firstly appeal directly to the car park company. If they don't reply to your appeal, or turn it down, then go to https://www.cas.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/icmspublicweb/forms/GeneralForm.html to lodge your complaint with Fair Trading.
In March 2015, this website received a legal letter from Force Legal solicitor Pierre J. Safi demanding (amongst other things) that: "Within 48 hours you are requested to remove all references to Force Legal in respect of parking matters as set out in the profile you have created at https://sites.google.com/site/unfairfines/companies/force-legal". This website co-operated with the legal letter in regards to other requests in the letter, but with regards to removing all parking matters it refused to do so, because it was fact that Force Legal, did, and still does (as at March 2017) deal in the pursual of payments for parking matters.
Force Legal is connected with Australian Recoveries & Mercantile Agents (ARMA). Andrew Smith is a shareholder of both companies. Force Legal will send a demand first, and then ARMA will follow up with future demands.
Disclaimer: The information on this page represents the views and honest opinions of the authors, based on information the authors had been provided with at the time of writing (5/3/2017). It is not meant to be a full view of, or full profile of, Force Legal. For a complete view of Force Legal, please go to their website at forcelegal.com.au.