As my tribulations reach a crescendo, or perhaps I should say another crescendo, several apparently unrelated matters coalesce around a theme. To begin with I have developed a keen interest of the saga of a person named Doctor Samantha Bailey. Perhaps I should not call her doctor as she has had her registration as a medical practitioner cancelled. I have prepared a draft detailed analysis of this decision which I am not ready to publish as yet as I refine what is a complicated story. I will briefly explain to show why it is relevant to me.
Contemporaneously, I am to appear in court on Tuesday to begin my defence against the iniquitous claim levelled against me by NZICA for the sum of $260,000 plus a whole lot of add-ons. Partially because of NZICA’s unconscionable conduct I approach the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) to intervene on my behalf in some way. It is relevant that my now erstwhile membership of NZICA was based on membership of ICAEW. The person I found to seek assistance has a job which involves dealing with matters international. What she did was refer the matter to the conduct department.
The conduct department opened some sort of inquiry as if I had done something wrong. After several exchanges the case officer asked me if I had reported the matter before. I don’t know her motive for asking but members are obliged to self-report if they have offended against the code of ethics or the by-laws. I have done nothing wrong so I did not need to report. Nonetheless I did bring it to the attention of ICAEW in 2021. My response to the case officer was as follows:
You may not have intended your email to be hostile but that is the way I perceive it. It seems accusatory as if I failed to inform ICAEW about the profoundly unjust treatment I suffered.
I most certainly did bring this to the attention of ICAEW not that I received a positive response in any way. I sent a series of emails three of which I attach here. I note that two of the emails finished with the two lines which immediately follow.
I am desperately alone, abandoned in a Kafkaesque nightmare. Help me, please help me.
Please help me, if not for me, then for the integrity of accounting. Please.
Returning to the matter of Samantha Bailey what is relevant is that Ms Bailey was a vocal critic of NZ’s Covid response. She made a series of videos about several aspects of the response which I am ill-equipped to critique. The regulator, the Medical Council, developed a severe antipathy to Ms Bailey and set out to destroy her. Five years after the start of Covid they succeeded, if cancellation is success. There are a number of severe legal flaws in the cancellation decision which I will analyse in detail. Of enormous significance is that the right to free expression is enshrined in statute in NZ and the tribunal deciding Ms Bailey’s fate is subject to it. Nevertheless, the tribunal rode roughshod over Ms Bailey’s legal rights and expelled her. There is at work an authoritarian instinct unworthy of a free, democratic country.
The spectre of authoritarianism is the link to me. About a year ago I asked the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) to consider my matter. I was ignored of course. Here is the text of my letter.
5 April 2024
To Whom It May Concern
IFAC
NEW YORK
EMAIL:
Introduction
1. I write in accordance with Article 6 of the IFAC By-laws seeking consideration of the suspension or expulsion of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA) for the infraction of bringing the accountancy profession into disrepute. The circumstances are complex. I will summarise as much as possible. Nonetheless some detail is necessary to appreciate the injustice NZICA has perpetrated.
Background
2. I was a sole practitioner. In 2010 the High Court appointed me liquidator of a company named Property Ventures Limited (PVL). The company, a property developer, was dominated by a man named Henderson, a recidivist criminal, discharged bankrupt and banned director. PVL and its subsidiaries failed owing hundreds of millions. PVL was audited by PwC.
3. I persuaded a litigation funder to support suit against the auditor and directors. Settlement was achieved seven years after I was appointed. The sum secured was $NZ40 million. As it cost so much to fund the litigation funder was paid the lion’s share. I was modestly remunerated.
4. It became apparent that the “profession”, meaning the Big 4, were hostile to litigation funding. I discovered this state of affairs when I tried to enlist an audit expert.
5. Significant sums of money remained in the rump of the PVL group. Henderson misappropriated more than $NZ10 million. At the same time, because he was newly enriched, he set out on a campaign of vexation against me. This campaign played out in the Courts and at NZICA.
6. Henderson was the author of a complaint in 2013 based substantially on tittle tattle. At the investigative or filtering stage, being the Professional Conduct Committee (PCC), NZICA engaged a legal assessor with a conflict of interest which he failed to disclose. Ultimately, in 2014 the Disciplinary Tribunal decided I was “unprofessional” but imposed no penalty.
The 4th complaint
7. In April 2019 Henderson made his fourth complaint to NZICA. The PCC is obliged to apply a filter to ensure any complaint is not, amongst other things, vexatious, in bad faith or an abuse of process before it is sent to the member. NZICA later admitted it did NOT apply the filter. My counsel submitted to the PCC that the criteria in the filter process were more than met.
8. Two years passed whereupon the PCC appointed an investigator from Deloitte. The NZICA Act 1996 makes it clear that NZICA cannot delegate its investigative functions. The investigator was illegally appointed. He demanded irrelevant information. The right to make such request is vested in the PCC and only the PCC. Even then it is constrained to prevent ‘fishing expeditions’.
9. Contrary to his professional obligations the investigator had no plan. He prepared an initial report which was biased. Despite the unequivocal obligation to give me a right of response, I was kept oblivious to the existence of this report.
10. The investigator had undisclosed conflicts of interest. Years before his firm facilitated a fraud which enriched Henderson at the expense of creditors. Henderson clearly influenced the investigator’s information requests to advance Henderson’s interests.
11. Two events happened contemporaneously. I was self-represented as defendant in Henderson’s litigation. I provided a memorandum in which I told the presiding judge that I was suffering mental ill-health. The memorandum was embargoed by law. Nonetheless Henderson forwarded it to NZICA. The investigator wrote a deceitful email accusing me of being uncooperative. Later I adduced evidence to prove otherwise.
Suspension
12. With 13 days’ notice and based on the deceitful email, the PCC applied to the Tribunal to have me suspended. There were two grounds:
§ I was mentally unwell; and
§ I did not comply with requests for information.
13. I was in no fit state to attend. I set about defending myself in writing in lieu of attendance. The Tribunal decided I should be suspended. A lawyer chairing seemed to realise that the Tribunal could not sanction me for mental ill-health and that I had grounds to resist complying with the investigator. Consequently, he spontaneously added a third charge accusing me unprofessionalism in my private communication.
14. The illegally short notice period was due to a new insolvency regulation regime. The last day for being granted a licence by NZICA (on behalf of the government) was one day after the hearing. I was suspended on 31 August 2021 and I could not have a licence. I lost my livelihood in consequence.
Revocation application
15. I applied for revocation of the suspension. I made detailed submissions backed with copious evidence. Much of this documentation was given to me only after suspension even though I had asked under the Privacy Act 2020 before. The material was deeply incriminating. There were more than 50 separate communications between Henderson and NZICA. I was given no right of reply in spite of NZICA’s natural justice obligation.
16. Furthermore, belatedly NZICA notified me of the investigator’s first report. It then claimed the Privacy Act entitled them to withhold it. I sought official intervention and the Privacy Commission told NZICA it was behaving illegally which was ignored.
17. In any event I prepared my submissions so as to include a point-by-point refutation of the claims made by the Tribunal. The panellists sitting in judgment for the revocation – essentially an appeal – were the same people who had suspended me in the first place. Anyone who sits in judgment of their own decisions can be nothing other than biased, particularly when they have been roundly criticised by the appellant. Both elements of natural justice had been breached at this point.
Aftermath
18. I have now been suspended 31 months. I made a number of attempts to get NZICA to see reason to no avail. I made complaints about various persons only to be ignored. I then complained to the Registrar of Companies, a component of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) on 20 April 2023. MBIE has a supervisory role over NZICA in terms of being the administrator of the NZICA Act as well as audit and insolvency regulation. Ten days after MBIE acknowledged receipt, I had a charge from the PCC referring me to the Tribunal again on the basis that I am guilty of professional misconduct and lack of objectivity. I surmise that the charge is retaliatory because I complained about NZICA.
19. The most egregious failure in this matter is NZICA’s disregard of professional engagement standards. In New Zealand professional engagements fall either into the scope of APS-1, being agreed upon procedures, or into ISAE (NZ) 3000 which covers miscellaneous assurance in addition to audit or review. Failure to comply meant there was no plan, an essential element within professional work. In consequence the investigator failed to communicate to me what information he required and why. Given that he was to consider my objectivity he could not possibly do so without reviewing my work. At no point did he ever look at any of my files.
20. He delivered his final report in December 2022. It was based on hearsay which should have been disregarded. Otherwise, it referred to documents considered at the first hearing in 2014 and, thereby, breaches the double jeopardy rule. I responded in detail but seem to have been ignored.
Complaint
21. In sum, NZICA has advanced the interests of a serial fraudster to the detriment of me, a court appointed officer performing a statutory duty. The conduct of NZICA has given material assistance to the fraudster to enable him to avoid being held to account. I think it fair to say that NZICA have offended against the accessory provisions of the New Zealand Crimes Act.
22. The accusations made against me are baseless. In the course of its five-year investigation and prosecution NZICA has breached a series of statutes and regulations. Appendix 1 summarises these breaches [not enclosed but includes reference to right of free expression]. You will note that I have included a column to facilitate cross-reference to documentation. The material is voluminous. Once my complaint is accepted, I will make the evidence available by Dropbox. I have not included breaches of the Code of Ethics but I am prepared to demonstrate failure of integrity, competence and objectivity.
23. Finally, I think it would be unwise for IFAC to default to favouring the large organisation against the small. The Post Office scandal in the United Kingdom stands as a severe warning for all to avoid favouring the powerful over the weak. I look forward to hearing from you.
Good luck!