Three former directors of the failed firm Capital + Merchant Finance are due to be sentenced today in the High Court at Auckland today for misleading investors.
Former C+M chief executive Owen Tallentire and directors Robert Sutherland and Colin Ryan pleaded guilty earlier this year to two charges of making an untrue statement in a registered prospectus and one charge of distributing advertisements which included an untrue statement.
The charges, laid under the Securities Act and brought by the Financial Markets Authority, carry a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment or fines of up to $300,000 and Tallentire will also be banned from managing a company for five years.
Tallentire, in his mid-60s, is already serving a sentence of five years' imprisonment for theft by a person in a special relationship charges in a case brought by the Serious Fraud Office.
In these proceedings, the founding directors and beneficial owners of C+M, Wayne Douglas and Neal Nicholls, were both jailed last year for seven and a half years, the longest sentences given to failed finance company bosses to date.
