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A Victorian director failed to ensure taxes and super were paid or meet ATO lodgement obligations.
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ASIC bans director over accounting failures
24 May 2022
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10 minute read
ASIC has disqualified a director from managing corporations for three years and six months due to his involvement in the failure of five companies.
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Between October 2013 and December 2018 James Sackl was a director of five companies.
Dash Technologies operated a software development business, Ad Astra operated a registered training organisation (RTO) cooking school, Karma3 operated a business producing animal feed, Sino Resources operated a migration agency and Universal operated a business that found employment for immigrants.
ASIC found that Mr Sackl failed to comply with his core duties as a director when he generally acted with a lack of commercial morality and incompetence by failing to ensure taxes, superannuation and workers’ insurance premiums were paid.
He failed to ensure Dash and Ad Astra maintained proper financial records, including the lodgement of business activity statements and PAYG summaries with the ATO.
The regulator also found Mr Sackl failed to ensure Ad Astra operated its business as an RTO to the standard required by law and failed to adequately manage Karma3’s financial position.
He had improperly used his position to gain an advantage for himself and his mother by causing Dash to enter a refinancing agreement for the purpose of obtaining funds to settle personal loans.
“Mr Sackl failed to prevent Dash and Ad Astra from trading whilst insolvent and failed to submit a Report on Company Activities and Property to the liquidators of Dash, Karma3 and Sino,” ASIC said.
“He also failed to provide the liquidator of Dash with a copy of relevant software, Xero records and access to its bank accounts as soon as practicable after winding up.”
At the time of ASIC’s decision, the five companies owed a combined total of $2.9 million to creditors, including $830,000 owing to the ATO and $118,800 to the Attorney-General’s Department in relation to the Fair Entitlements Guarantee.
In disqualifying Mr Sackl, ASIC relied on supplementary reports lodged by Dash’s liquidator, James Koutsoukos of BRI Ferrier and Ad Astra’s liquidator, Richard Rohrt of Hamilton Murphy. ASIC assisted Mr Koutsoukos and Mr Rohrt to prepare their reports by providing funding from the Assetless Administration Fund.
Mr Sackl is disqualified from managing corporations until 3 November 2025.
Mr Sackl has the right to seek a review of ASIC’s decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Mr Sackl became bankrupt on 13 November 2020 and has not been discharged.
In determining the period of disqualification, ASIC considered that Mr Sackl’s conduct warranted the maximum five-year period but took into account that Mr Sackl has effectively been prohibited from managing corporations from the date of his bankruptcy.
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