Former Access manager pleads not guilty to fraud charges

The former managing director of Access Brokerage pleaded not guilty to 15 fraud charges relating to the company's collapse at a depositions hearing in the Wellington District Court today.

The Serious Fraud Office has charged Peter Gerald Marshall with 13 counts of false accounting and two of making a false statement as a company officer.

Marshall pleaded not guilty to the charges but acknowledged there was a case to answer. The matter will go to a jury trial at the Wellington High Court, starting on April 24.

Marshall's lawyer, Lance Pratley, said his client had no further comment to make on the charges.

Marshall was remanded on bail and the court today agreed to temporarily give back his passport to allow him to visit family in Australia for five days next month.

Access, an online brokerage, went into liquidation in September 2004 after an alleged $5 million shortfall in client funds was discovered.

The shortfall was discovered when Access's founder Bill Garlick was running the business while Marshall was on sick leave.

Around 10,000 investors were left with a total of $43 million frozen in the brokerage's trust account, which was eventually unfrozen by the bank involved, the BNZ.

Liquidators Michael Stiassny and Brendan Gibson, of Ferrier Hodgson, found accounting discrepancies going back to at least June 1998.

In a report issued in April last year, Ferrier Hodgson estimated there would be a $3.9 million shortfall between what was owed and what could be recouped.

The BNZ is taking separate legal action, along with Access' liquidators to recover the money it repaid to shareholders from the stock exchange operator, NZX, and auditor Deloitte.

The NZX is also taking disciplinary action against both Marshall and Access.

- NZPA