Struggling to maintain its building licence, Rockhampton-based J.M. Kelly Group underestimated it debt levels to the construction watchdog. The following year the company collapsed.
Glen Norris, The Courier-MailSubscriber only|August 15, 2019 4:37pm
THE boss of collapsed J.M. Kelly Builders underestimated its debt by almost $2 million dollars in documents sent to the construction watchdog as the company struggled to maintain its building licence, a court has heard.
Lawyers acting for liquidators said figures provided by company director John Murphy to the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) showed debts owed to J.M. Kelly Builders from other firms in the group as totalling only $253,000 in 2017 when in fact it was $2.15 million.
Barrister Craig Wilkins, acting for J.M. Kelly liquidator Derrick Vickers, questioned Mr Murphy as part of a public examination proceeding in the Federal Court in Brisbane into the $50 million collapse of the group last year.
Mr Wilkins said that if the true inter-company debt level of the group was known the company would not have qualified to hold a building licence.
“The information you provided was inaccurate,” Mr Wilkins said. “It was not just a little inaccurate but a lot. How is it you didn’t know they (the figures) were wrong?”
Mr Murphy told the court he never prepared the report, which carried his electronic signature, for the QBCC and it had been done by the company’s accounting department.
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