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Blue Chip co-founder Mark Bryers is being threatened with bankruptcy proceedings unless he settles a $13.6 million High Court claim against him.
Bryers has led lawyers working for a Singapore developer a merry dance while trying to avoid having documents served on him for money allegedly owed on 58 residential sections at Gulf Harbour in Whangaparaoa.
Bryers has ducked and dived since last year, refusing to front up to a document server trying to issue him with the claim against him by Consolidated Technologies Development (CTD), owned by developer Cheow Tan and his wife, Jean.
CTD is suing Bryers for $13.6 million plus $6900 interest a day which has been accumulating since the amount was allegedly due to be settled in October last year.
The debt relates to residential sections in the Auradale and Daliarose subdivisions in Gulf Harbour, on a hill overlooking the Gulf Harbour Country Club and golf course which Bryers owns.
The saga of trying to serve documents on Bryers started in November last year after CTD lodged a claim in the High Court after Bryers allegedly defaulted on payment.
When process servers were unable to track Bryers down, Tan's Auckland lawyers, Bell Gully, approached Bryers' lawyers, Auckland law firm Walters Law, in December last year asking if they were authorised to accept the documents on Bryers' behalf.
In February they got a response, saying that Walters Law was not authorised and that Bryers was now believed to be living in Sydney.
Process servers then scoured Sydney trying to find Bryers, who was still living at his Remuera address and working some of the time at Blue Chip's head office on the 20th floor of Qantas House in Queen St.
John Walters, from Walters Law, is a former director of a Blue Chip company and has offices based on the 23rd floor of Qantas House.
Early this month the document server, acting on new information, rang the security buzzer of Bryers' Remuera home and, speaking to Bryers through the intercom, asked him to come to the gate. According to an affidavit in the High Court file, Bryers refused, telling the document server to give the documents to his lawyers, Walters Law.
The document server tried to persuade him to come to the gate but Bryers hung up. He then rang the buzzer again and spoke to a woman who said Mark Bryers was in Australia. The document server said he had just been speaking to Bryers and the woman did not answer. "After a long silence" the intercom went dead.
As a result, a High Court judge gave permission for notices to be put in the New Zealand Herald and the Sydney Morning Herald last week, and for the documents to be either attached to the gate of Bryers' home, or put in the letterbox, and given to Walters Law.
If judgment is found against Bryers he could face bankruptcy proceedings, says Bell Gully lawyer Murray Tingey. The claim comes at a time when Bryers is already under pressure as thousands of distressed Blue Chip investors wait for news from the liquidator over millions of dollars owed after 20 Blue Chip-related companies were put into liquidation.
Tan bought a large residential subdivision at Gulf Harbour of 116 sections from developer Jamie Peters in September 2005 and May 2006. The sections were subsequently bought by Mark Bryers, Blue Chip co-founder Bob Bangerter and companies associated with Blue Chip. Part of the deal with Bryers involved a lifetime membership for Tan and his wife at the Gulf Harbour Golf Course, with no fees payable.
Tingey said none of the sections had been settled but the money owing on the 58 sections bought by Bryers was the only amount being pursued through the courts at this stage "for obvious reasons".
"There is no point in suing [for the others]," he said.
Real estate company Colliers International is seeking expressions of interest for the 116 sections. If a buyer was found, Tingey said, the agreements with Bryers, Bangerter and the associated companies could be cancelled. If there was a shortfall between the price paid and that agreed with Bryers, CTD would sue for the difference.
Bryers has until April 18 to come up with the money, plus the interest owed and costs, or CTD will seek summary judgment and issue bankruptcy proceedings.
Cheow Tan is involved in various developments at Gulf Harbour, including the Cape Villas terraced housing project.
Last week unhappy Blue Chip investors in the Gulf Harbour Lodge were told the business owed at least $2.7 million. The waterfront lodge is run by Swordfish Lodge Management whose only director is Mark Bryers. Swordfish's sole shareholder is Blue Sky Holdings, one of the group of 20 Blue Chip companies in liquidation. Twenty-nine investors who bought 35 units at the upmarket lodge were guaranteed returns, until late last year when the cash stopped.
