MELBOURNE, Australia—The board of Australian mobile-phone operator One.Tel was kept in the dark by the company’s senior executives, a liquidation hearing into the collapse of the telecom company has been told.
One.Tel, whose major shareholders included Australian media magnate Kerry Packer’s Publishing & Broadcasting Limited (PBL) and Rupert Murdoch’s News, went into voluntary liquidation last May. Both shareholders claimed they were misled about the company’s dire financial position when it ceased trading.
The Federal Court in Sydney, Australia, heard that One.Tel Finance Director Mark Silbermann was removed from a meeting with PBL Chairman Packer three weeks before the collapse, because his financial forecasts were not trusted.
On the same day, money was being transferred from company bank accounts in Europe because its bank account in Australia was overdrawn by A$2.8 million (US$1.5 million). The hearing continues.
