Article from: The Australian
Sham loan in Rwanda mystery
$US6 million loan he made to a Swiss company, Greencart.
The partial repayment of the Greencart loan is said to be linked to a separate, sham loan.According to court documents, global financial company Fortis Business Holdings made a $USS5.2m loan to Swiss-based Hirsch & Cie last year.
It was ostensibly for an investment in a Rwandan mine, but the funds ended up in the Commonwealth Bank account of a company, STM123 Pty Ltd, of which Mr Blank is the sole shareholder and director.
Fortis believes the funds are no longer in the account and documents relating to the Greencart loan are said to be crucial to a case brought by Fortis in England’s High Court.
Fortis claims the loan to invest in Rwanda was a sham and the money was always intended to be paid to Mr Blank, who was owed money by Hirsch & Cie’s Robert Hirsch.
The dealings between Mr Blank’s company STM123 and Greencart may provide an “essential missing piece of the jigsaw” of evidence in the English proceedings, the Victorian Supreme Court recently ruled.
Fortis chairman Louis Kestenbaum, a self-described “successful businessman with a property portfolio worth several hundreds of millions of dollars”, gave evidence in the case.
The court heard that Mr Blank was contacted by the CBA this year but would not agree to the return of the funds, saying they were legitimate.
A few days later, Mr Blank was again contacted by the bank, and was told Fortis was claiming it was the beneficial owner of the funds. Mr Blank said he found the situation “confusing and messy” and was seeking further information.
Loan agreement documents were provided by Mr Blank to the CBA that showed his STM123 (No5) company had loaned $US6m to Greencart by way of a promissory note on September 5 2008.
That was the same date Fortis had first received instructions about where to pay the Rwandan loan monies.
Fortis told the Victorian courts it wanted the loan documents held by CBA to help in its bid to continue asset freezing orders against Mr Linde and others.
Mr Blank’s lawyers argued it was not fair that his client, who had done nothing wrong, should be caught up in the English proceedings. If the Rwandan loan was a sham it had nothing to do with his client, and the loan documents would not assist the English courts. There were no allegations that the Greencart loan was a sham.
