Tag Archives: managed investement schemes

Timbercorp appeal fails, as the Great Southern trial draws to a close

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As the marathon Great Southern trial finally draws to a close in the Victorian Supreme Court – just before the first anniversary of its commencement (link) – there has been a significant, relevant judgment delivered. Last week the Victorian Court of Appeal handed down its decision in another class action case involving failed agribusiness managed investment schemes with questions raised about their product disclosure statements – Woodcroft-Brown v Timbercorp Securities Ltd & Ors [2013] VSCA 284.

In dismissing the investors’ appeal, the Court of Appeal held that the trial judge Judd J had not erred in any of his challenged findings. One of those was that the Timbercorp directors did not have actual knowledge of a significant risk to viability until bank support wavered. This was well after publication of the last PDS, and after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in late 2008, which was swiftly followed by the sudden termination of negotiations Timbercorp had been engaged in for the sale and leaseback of certain of its properties and forestry assets. Even then the directors were able to manage those set-backs and address them opening new negotiations with other parties, keeping the banks onside, until their support was withdrawn shortly before Timbercorp’s collapse in mid-April 2009 .

Background

Beginning in 1992, the Timbercorp Group operated a number of horticultural and forestry managed investment schemes (MISs), including almonds, olive oil, grapes and eucalypt plantation projects, with Timbercorp Securities PL as the Responsible Entity. Timbercorp Finance PL’s role was to lend money to investors so that they could invest in the MISs. The defendants to the litigation were those two companies plus three persons who were directors of both companies and of the holding company Timbercorp Ltd.

The Timbercorp Group invested in excess of $2 billion on behalf of about 18,500 investors. Using a combination of debt and equity, the Group would acquire and develop land into plantations and orchards to generate a long term revenue stream from management fees and licence fees and would sell interests in the project to investors. The land and its developments would then be sold either into a property trust where the Group would retain some of the equity in the asset, or it would be sold to a third party buyer, usually on a sale and leaseback basis.

The Group also generated profit by Timbercorp Finance lending to investors, usually up to 90 per cent of their investment. In addition the Group raised funds by securitising its loan book and using the loans as security for finance bonds and bank facilities. To fund the infrstructure and working capital of the projects, the Group would sell assets, raise equity, securitise loans, and arrange debt facilities with the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, HBOS and Westpac.

After the Group began to experience trouble, Timbercorp kept its bankers informed of developments and the Group’s financiers entered into or renegotiated facilities, extended repayment dates, increased facility amounts and, when necessary, modified covenants to avoid a breach.

The Group’s profitability began to be affected by an adverse tax announcement by the ATO impacting upon the Group in 2007/08. Three days before Lehman Brothers collapsed the Group was managing that issue and its impact, and had already commenced negotiations with various third parties for the sale and leaseaback of a number of its properties and forestry assets.

When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the US on 15 September 2008, this lead to the effective closure of global markets. The next day, one of the purchasers terminated negotiations and the others soon followed. In November further steps were taken to seek to sell assets, and the Group’s auditors expressed concerns about the business as a going concern, noting its working capital deficiency of $82.8 million

In December 2008 Timbercorp Ltd presented an “apparently healthy position” in its Annual Report, including a directors’ declaration of solvency, though the opinion in the audit report included was guarded.

The Group managed to maintain bank support  until April 2009, when it collapsed and went into voluntary administration; liquidation followed in June 2009. At the time the company was wound up, Timbercorp Finance had outstanding loans to more than 14,500 investors totalling $477.8 million.

First Instance Judgment

In striking contrast with Great Southern, the Timbercorp trial ran over (only) 24 sitting days. It dealt with common questions and only looked at individual loss, reliance and causation in relation to the appellant Mr Woodcroft-Brown, and a Mr Van Hoff.

Mr Woodcroft-Brown had commenced proceedings on his own behalf and on behalf of persons who, at any time during the period 6 February 2007 and 23 April 2009 acquired or  held an interest in a MIS of which Timbercorp Securities was the Responsible Entity. Earlier investors were represented by Mr Van Hoff, who had invested in MISs before and after 6 February 2007 and financed the majority with money borrowed from Timbercorp Finance, and evidence was led from him as to breach, causation and reliance.

Mr Woodcroft-Brown argued that had certain matters been disclosed, he would neither have invested in the MISs nor borrowed money from Timbercorp Finance. Mr Van Hoff made a similar argument on behalf of early investors. In particular, they argued that Timbercorp Securities failed to disclose in its Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) information about significant risks, or risks that might have had a material influence on the decision to invest, in breach of disclosure obligations under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). They also argued that the Directors’ declarations made in two scheme financial reports were false or misleading and in breach of the Corporations Act, the ASIC Act 2001 (Cth) and the Fair Trading Act 1999 (Vic). The relief sought included declaratory relief, damages and/or compensatory orders, including an order that investors were not liable for repayment of the loans from Timbercorp Finance.

The directors denied the allegations against them, claiming to have taken reasonable steps to ensure that the PDSs would not be defective, a defence under s 1022B(7) of the Corporations Act.

His Honour Justice Judd at first instance found comprehensively in favour of the defendants. His Honour found that they were not required to diclose the risk identified by the plaintiffs, that there had been no misleading or deceptive conduct and, in any case, that there had been no relevant reliance by Mr Woodcroft-Brown or Mr Van Hoff on the alleged non-disclosures or representations. His Honour also made several adverse findings about the way the plaintiffs conducted their case. The first instance judgment may be read here.

The Non-Disclosure of Risk Case – see [29]-[57]

It was necessary for the plaintiffs to establish that there was an obligation to disclose certain matters under either s 1013D or s 1013E of the Corporations Act. Broadly, those provisions relevantly require PDSs to include information which a person would reasonably require for the purpose of making a decision as a retail client whether to acquire the financial product, including information about any significant risks associated with holding the product, and information which might reasonably be expected to have a material influence on their decision.

Section 1013C(2) of the Corporations Act qualifies that, by not requiring disclosure to the extent the information concerned is not known to the disclosing party, here Timbercorp Securiites or any director of it. Section 1013F(1) contains a further qualification, providing that information is not required to be included in a PDS if it would not be reasonable for a prospective (my word) retail client considering the product to expect to find the information there.

The plaintiffs had argued that there should have been discosure of the ‘structural risk’ in each PDS issued after April 2000, and of information about ‘adverse matters’ (matters which put the Group at a heightened risk of failure) as and when they occurred.

His Honour held that because of financial information about the Group available on its website, Annual Reports, ASX announcements and the material prpared by analysts, the information the plaintiffs argued ought to have been provided to potential and existing investors was not required because of the operation of s 1013F.

His Honour found ultimately that the appellant failed to satisfy or displace the operative effect of s 1013C(2) given the absence on the evidence of actual knowledge by the corporation or its directors of the risks as alleged, due to the way in which the appellant pleaded its case. For instance the Directors did not have actual knowledge that the adverse matters (such as the tax issue and the GFC) posed a risk that Timbercorp Securities would be unable to fulfil its contractual obligations, until the Directors realised bank support became equivocal. That was the point at which the ‘adverse matters’ stopped being the types of events that management deals with day to day and address, and turned into a crystallised risk to viability (see [38] and [40]-[53]).

In order to succeed on appeal, the appellant needed to demonstrate that the findings of fact of his Honour on these issues, were not open.

The Misrepresentation Case – [58]-[71]

Section 1022A of the Corporations Act defines a disclosure document or statement (including a PDS) as ‘defective’ if, inter alia, it contains a misleading or deceptive statement. Section 1022B(7) provides a defence of having taken reasonable steps to ensure it would not be defective. Section 12DA of the ASIC Act, prohibiting misleading or deceptive conduct in certain documents, and s 9 of the Fair Trading Act, prohibiting misleading or deceptive conduct in trade or commerce, were also relied upon by the plaintiffs.

They alleged the Timbercorp Group had made two types of false or misleading representations. The first was that the Group was financially sufficiently strong that investors would reasonably expect the MISs to be managed for the foreseeable future and that the principal risks associated with the relevant MISs were fully disclosed. His Honour found that the representations as to the Group’s strength were too vague and uncertain to be actionable, and that there were reasonable grounds for that confidence in any case.

The second was that scheme contributions equalled or exceeded the cost of establishing and maintaining a scheme, in that investors’ payments would be ‘quarantined’ and applied only to their relevant MIS, and MIS contributions would be sufficient to fund the relevant MIS. His Honour held that those representations alleged were not in fact made, and were indeed inconsistent with the PDSs and other generally available information.

The appellant also argued that Timbercorp Securities and the Directors made statements in March and September 2008 that were misleading or deceptive, to the effect that there had been no circumstances that had or may have significantly affected the operations of the relevant MISs. Judd J found that their case here failed on both causation and reliance. It was necessary for the appellant to establish that there was reliance placed upon the non-disclosures and the misleading conduct so as to cause entry into the investment product and, therefore, subsequently to cause loss. His Honour did not believe the evidence advanced by the appellant, or by Mr Van Hoff, on these issues (see [68]).

The Court of Appeal added the observation that the provisions relied on in relation to misleading conduct did not operate in relation to the disclsoure obligations in the PDSs per ss 1041H(3) and 1041K(2) of the Corporations Act, and s 12DA(1A)(c) of the ASIC Act (see [67]).

Shift in the appellant’s case – see [71]-[86]

There was a dispute both at trial and on appeal as to whether the appellant’s case had shifted during the course of the trial such that the appellant pursued a case that went beyond his pleading. The shift concerned the identification of the risks the appellant alleged should have been disclosed. The trial judge found that during the course of the trial, the appellant had materially shifted his conception of the relevant risk and in doing so departed from his pleaded case. One of the changes the trial judge found was the change in the way the appellant relied on the ‘adverse matters’ (such as the tax issue, and the GFC) in that, rather than focusing on their importance as stand alone risks, they achieved their materiality from the risk to the Group’s financing facilities increasing the risk of failure.

His Honour took the view that the reformulation of the appellant’s case was an attempt to ‘sidestep’ the opinions in the joint experts’ report, that as long as the Group’s bankers continued to support the Group’s operations, there was no significant risk that the Group would not have the financial capacity to manage any of the schemes through to their contemplated completion.

His Honour held that the appellant should be confined to his case as pleaded, both because the expert reports and the joint expert report were directed to the case as pleaded, and because of the way in which the respondents had fashioned and presented their evidence in response to that case. The Court of Appeal found no error in his Honour’s approach. Their Honours noted that on appeal, the appellant purported to urge the very case that was not pleaded at trial and which the trial judge rejected. Moreover, so the Court of Appeal observed, even if the appellant was permitted to advance the unpleaded case it was not supported by the evidence at trial.

On Appeal

The appeal was heard by their Honours Warren CJ, Buchanan JA and Macaulay AJA, who delivered a joint judgment.

After a discussion of the decision below, they reviewed the detailed evidence led by the Directors about the Group’s business model and the effect of the events of 2008.

The Group’s business model was to create capital intensive assets with a long term income stream and then to sell those assets within the period of three to five years. For each horticultural scheme, after five years the consequences of failing were intended to reduce to virtually nothing. For each forestry scheme, from about five years, the consequences of failure were intended to reduce gradually until harvest. The appellant submitted that the proper test would be that a risk of total loss of the investment must be disclosed unless the chance of the risk materialising was negligible.

In 2007 moving into 2008, the financial position of the operation was seen to be strong and profitable. The Court noted that importantly, as at 30 September 2008, there was no indication of any risk by reason of financial circumstances to the Group’s capacity to discharge its obligations in relation to the management of the projects. It was not until the last quarter of the 2008 calendar year, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and after the proposed sale of forestry assets to Harvard Management Company failed to proceed, that banker support wavered. Even then, banker support continued into the new year, with the banks providing Timbercorp with an opportunity to dispose of assets.

At the end of 2008, the bankers for the Group were prepared to increase support. As late as November 2008, the CBA agred to vary loan covenants and extend expiry dates into 2009. Judd J had found there was no sign of the Group having difficulty in securing from capital markets the requisite funding for its activities.

Indeed Judd J had noted that the experts’ report provided a complete answer because, whilst the bank support evaporated eventually after the Lehman collapse, before that time, there was no reason to conclude that it would not be continued on an indefinite basis. In light of that, the experts’ opinion was that there was no significant risk that the Group would not have had the financial capacity to manage any of the schemes through to their contemplated completion, for their full term.

Grounds of appeal 
Some of the specific grounds of appeal raised were as follows –
Ground 1 – [125]-[132] –  The complaint was essentially that his Honour had erred in construing the expression “significant risk” in s 1013D(1)(c) of the Corporations Act. The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge was correct when he said the definition was intended to be a flexible requirement tailored to the type of product involved and its particular circumstances. Amongst the constellation of issues in weighting ‘significant risk’, there is the probability of the occurence, the degree of impact upon investors, the nature of the particular product, and the profile of the investors, together with other matters. This group of issues is not closed and will vary depending upon the circumstances. (See [125]-[132])
Ground 2 – [133]-[141] – Again as to the construction of s 1013D(1)(c), the appellant argued his Honour erred in his assessment of when a risk is “significant”. This ground invoked matters associated with management of risk. In essence, the appellant submitted that the trial judge erred in holding that a risk is not significant if it is capable of successful management and is being managed. However the Court of Appeal disagreed that his Honour considered management of risk for the purposes of construction of the section. Rather, his Honour considered it as a matter of evidence and something that may intercept the potential emergence of a risk of significance.
Ground 4 –  [144]-[157] – The appellant argued his Honour erred in his construction of s 1013F, which provides for what information need not be included in a PDS.
Ground 13 – [212]-[225] -The appellants alleged that in his analysis of whether “the financial representations” and “project contributions representations” were misleading or deceptive, his Honour erred by failing to consider the effect of each PDS on an ordinary and reasonable reader. The criticism made was the focus of the analysis should be the effect of the representations upon the persons to whom the representations were addressed, not upon the mental state of the person making the representations.
The Court of Appeal expressed the view that whether the representations were misleading and deceptive did depend at least in part upon the mental state of the maker of the representations, because they would ordinarily be understood as statements of opinion. They were not apt to mislead if the opinion was genuinely and reasonably held by the maker of the statements. Their Honours also noted that the obligation to disclose risks to the schemes depended upon the actual knowledge of the risks. The respondents met the allegations with detailed evidence of their management of the business risks including the taxation announcement and the credit crisis, and the state of mind of the Directors as to the Group’s financial health and future prospects. It was entirely appropriate, so their Honours averred, for the trial judge to have regard to this evidence in determining whehter the alleged representations were misleading or deceptive. In any event, so the Court found, the trial judge did not simply analyse the representations from the standpoint of the respondents, but examined their likely effect upon the class of investors to whom the PDSs were addressed.
Counsel for the appellant submitted that the trial judge erred in that he failed to consider the impression which the PDSs would have had upon a relatively unsophisticated investor. However the Court disagreed that his Honour’s reasons disclosed that he unduly elevated the understanding and experience of the investors. Their Honours noted that the only two investors to give evidence were both knowledgeable and sophisticated. One was a qualified engineer and successful business engaging in property development through several companies. He was familiar with the share market and was computer literate. He understood balance sheets and P&L statements. The other, Mr Van Hoff, was the sole shareholder and director of a company that conducted a transport business. He had been in business for some 22 years, had a portfolio of shares and a self-managed superannuation fund. In any event, the plurality observed that the appellant’s claim failed for reasons which did not turn upon the perceptiveness, sophistication or knowledge of the investors.
Ground 14 – reliance – [226]-[239] – The appellant challenged the trial judge’s finding that there was no relevant reliance by the two plaintiffs on the alleged non-disclosures, by concluding that the sole driver for their decision to invest was the tax-effective nature of the projects and that they were indifferent to the content of the documents, and that there was a necessary inconsistency between reliance on the strength of the group, and the assumption that projects were quarantined one from another.
To succeed, the appellant had to establish that the alleged representaions constitued a decisive consideration in the decision to invest in the Timbercorp scheme. The witness statements of Mr Woodcroft-Brown and Mr Van Hoff recorded that they read the PDSs and stated their reliance on the representations in temrs which were virtually identical and which echoed hte allegations made in the statemnt of claim. The Court of Appeal described it as unsurprising that the trial judge stated he placed little reliance on this formulaic evidence.
In light of evidence given on cross-examination, the trial judge was not persuaded that the appellant Mr Woodcroft-Brown had read the PDSs in any detail. There had been a meeting with a financial adviser where he was presented with a number of PDSs for a three different investments schemes for him to consider, with a view to reducing his tax liability on a profit earnt, and did not have time to do much more than skim through them. The trial judge concluded that the appellant acted on the recommendation of the financial advisor, motivated by his “anxious desire” to obtain a tax deduction. The trial judge found that the actual content of the PDS or the absence of information, was not what induced the appellant to invest in the project. It was a matter of selecting a project to provide him with the required tax-relief. His Honour said he had no doubt that the financing option – 12 months interest free = was an inducement.
The trial judge found similarly with respect to Mr Van Hoff. He was not satisfied that Mr Van Hoff read any of the PDS in any detail. He may have glanced at parts, but was willing to invest without careful consideration of the documents. That was treated as undermining his evidence insofar as he relied on the contents of the documents, or the absence of information contained in them. His Honour found that Mr Van Hoff did not look to the PDSs as a source of information to assist him in his decision to invest in Timbercorp schemes. He chose the schemes on the basis of advice from his accountant and others, in search of tax relief.
Counsel for the appellant submitted that there was no inconsistency between investing with a view to obtaining a tax-deduction, and investing to obtaining income. However the Court of Appeal observed that while it may be acepted that the appellant and Mr Van Hoff were not indifferent to whether their investments would be profitable, it does not follow that their hope of profit was derived from any representations made by the respondents.
Their Honours upheld the trial judges’ conclusions here also.
Overall, the Court of Appeal held that the appellant had failed to demonstrate that the factual conclusions the trial judge made upon the application of correct legal test were not open to his Honour to find. They held that none of the grounds succeeded, and dismissed the appeal.
Conclusion
Not a good result for the investors in the Timbercorp management investment schemes, although the Timbercorp liquidators should be commended for their announcement following the judgment that they would offer some borrowers a chance to settle their loans and receive a 15% or 10% discount on their debt, although even this may do little to assuage the ongoing financial pain of the borrowers.
It could be a long while yet before his Honour Justice Croft hands down his judgment in Great Southern. After the 24 sitting days of the Timbercorp trial from late May to early July 2011, Judd J handed down his judgment an admirable 2 months later. After the almost full calendar year of the Great Southern class action trial, albeit with breaks punctuating that timeframe, Croft J will have a sizeable job ahead, and it is hard to see how his Honour’s judgment could be likely to be delivered much before mid-2014, and possibly later.
Thus it could be a while yet before we learn what evidentiary problems the Great Southern investors might have had and whether they went to issues that were sticking points in Timbercorp, such as reliance or causation. Nor will we know for a while in detail what the evidence disclosed about the knowledge of the representors in the Great Southern PDSs as to the risks of the investments at the relevant times.
We also do not yet know whether there was a smoking gun in the new evidence found on several company servers and computers that were discovered late in the trial. It has been reported that this development lead to the reconvening of the trial after evidence had been thought to have been closed, and the recalling of several witnesses. It was reported that counsel for the Great Southern investors submitted that the new evidence showed Great Southern used cash top-up payments to mask the fact that log yields from plantations were below forecast. It was not until the 11th month since the trial opened that evidence was reportedly heard from the former head of forestry at Great Southern, that the company was aware at a material time that plantations were not meeting forecast yields. It was also submitted by counsel for the investors that to sate investor demand, the firm bought plots not suitable for yielding plantations as forecast in the PDS (link).
In any event what we can probably be confident of, is that much will now be made in final oral submissions of the Court of Appeal’s judgment in Timbercorp by the Great Southern defendants.