Hogan's Lawyers 'trying To Derail' Taxes Probe

The Age

Tuesday December 9, 2008

KATE McCLYMONT

PAUL HOGAN'S legal team has been accused of trying to derail a criminal investigation into the Crocodile Dundee star's tax affairs by seeking to have the investigators removed from his case.

Hogan and his former comic sidekick John "Strop" Cornell, along with their tax adviser Tony Stewart, are part of a "very, very serious investigation which may have very serious consequences" for them, said Francois Kunc, SC, representing Hogan and Stewart.

For the past four years the Australian Crime Commission has been investigating the trio as part of Operation Wickenby, a criminal investigation into money laundering and tax evasion using offshore accounts, the Federal Court heard yesterday.

Mr Kunc said the three investigators who had been working on the case should be "quarantined" from the investigation because they had seen documents seized from accountancy firm Ernst and Young that were later ruled to be covered by legal professional privilege.

Mr Kunc said there was no suggestion of "anything illegal or untoward" in the investigators examining the documents.

But with the documents ruled to be privileged the investigators should be removed from the case because the documents had helped them understand the business affairs of Hogan, Cornell and Stewart.

Tim Game, SC, counsel for the crime commission, said there was no evidence of any benefit being obtained from the documents and that they were of no use "in any practical way". He said it was obvious that "the underlying purpose is to get the three investigators off the case".

Ian Andrew, the commission's chief investigator in this matter, told the court yesterday he had no independent recollection of having seen any of the documents and he did not believe they played any part in the investigation.

While he could not recall the disputed documents, Mr Andrew agreed with Mr Kunc's suggestion that some information from the documents might "pop back into your consciousness".

Mr Andrew said it would be almost impossible to to pass on the collective knowledge of his team and that the crime commission would have to "consider the merits of continuing the investigation" in view of the cost associated with getting a new team up to speed on the investigation. He said he and two investigators on secondment from the Australian Tax Office - Stephen Sciberras and Adrian Clutterbuck - had spent years on the case and their combined knowledge was obtained from interviewing witnesses, telephone intercepts, assembling thousands of documents and understanding international tax schemes.

He agreed with Mr Kunc that the crime commission's records were stored on databases and that new investigators could access them. But he rejected Mr Kunc's suggestion that a new team would require a few months to get on top of the information.

"It's taken us years and years," said Mr Andrew, who added that he thought it would be more likely to take up to a year for new investigators, which might be too costly for the crime commission.

Cornell was not a party to yesterday's court action.

KEY POINTS

Criminal investigation into money laundering and tax evasion using offshore accounts.

Call for three investigators who had been working on the case to be "quarantined".

© 2008 The Age

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