KEY POINTS:
Rod Petricevic and his fellow former Bridgecorp director Robert Roest will face a jury when criminal charges against them are heard.
The men are now each charged with a total of five offences relating to the collapse of the finance company last year. These include two new, more serious Securities Act charges which carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
The men were in the Auckland District Court yesterday to hear that the new charges had been laid indictably, meaning the matter will go to a jury trial.
Crown prosecutor Mark Woolford successfully applied to have the other three charges made indictable as well.
The new charges allege that Petricevic and Roest, as executive directors of the financier, were responsible for Bridgecorp making untrue statements in its prospectus. They have been laid following further Securities Commission investigations.
They sit alongside the other charges that the men signed two prospectuses and a directors' certificate stating that Bridgecorp had never missed an interest payment or repayment of principal.
In fact, the Crown says, by this time the finance company had missed numerous payments.
It says that from February 7, 2007 until Bridgecorp collapsed in July of last year, $21.1 million worth of interest and principal payments were either delayed or not paid at all.
The summary of the Registrar of Companies' case against Petricevic and Roest says that on April 17 last year Bridgecorp had only $45,000 available to meet almost $2 million in payments due to investors.
It says Bridgecorp staff were told to lie to people about late payments, telling them a bank error or a computer glitch was to blame.
The company collapsed owing 14,000 debenture holders $459 million. The receivers have estimated investors will get back as little as 13c in the dollar.
Yesterday Judge Elizabeth Aitken allowed all media applications to film or take photographs in court.
"There can be no doubt in my mind that given the collapse of Bridgecorp there is a considerable level of public interest in these proceedings."
However Paul Davison, QC, representing Petricevic, wanted his concern registered that there had been substantial coverage of the case before his client had entered a plea on the charges. He called for care that the "prospects of a fair trial are not prejudiced by pre-trial publicity".
Petricevic, who founded Bridgecorp, was judged bankrupt last month and owes at least $4.7 million. Bridgecorp's receivers are also pursuing him for $2.7 million in what they say were excessive earnings in the three years before the company failed.
They are also chasing Roest for more than $300,000 in excessive earnings in the year before Bridgecorp's failure.
Petricevic and Roest were remanded on bail until October 21.
