Director flees ASIC when distributor goes broke

A Sydney-based IT distributor found trading while insolvent is being wound up by the courts after its director disappeared and angry customers brought the situation to the attention of authorities.
 
The Supreme Court of NSW has appointed consultancy Deloitte as liquidator of Campbelltown-based Dom Distributing, after an investigation of the distributor by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
 
ASIC began investigating Dom Distributing after creditors complained the distributor had failed to pay certain debts. A spokeswoman for ASIC said she could only provide limited comment on the case.
 
“There were complaints from creditors that they haven't been able to pay and things like that. We identified 13 outstanding judgement debts and that enabled us to provide evidence to the court that the company was insolvent,” she said.
 
A judgement debt is when a defendant has been judged to owe that debt by a court. “The outcome is that the company will be wound up by the court, so there probably won't be any further action [from ASIC],” she said.
 
The court was unable to enforce the 13 debts. ASIC has been unable to find Dom Distributing's director, Guy Nathan Stork, despite several attempts.
 
“The registered office and principal place of business of Mr Stork and Dom Distributing has been vacated. This was also the listed residential address of Mr Stork,” ASIC said in a statement.
 
Dom Distributing has been on the move and ASIC is not the first organisation to be unable to find Stork.
 
Andrew Humpherson, the NSW minister for Davidson, was contacted by two customers of Dom Distributing, Robert and Pauline Clegg of Frenchs Forest, late last year.
 
The Cleggs had bought $5,093.68 of computers and associated gear from Dom Distributing in March 2003. They never received the goods, despite repeated attempts to contact the distributor and find out what had happened, Humpherson said, in a private member's statement to the Legislative Assembly on 2 December.
 
He said that the Cleggs had visited Dom Distributing's premises in Campbelltown, only to find the office was closed. They then lodged a complaint with NSW's Office of Fair Trading on 24 April 2003. However, Fair Trading was also unable to contact Dom Distributing.
 
He said the Cleggs had found out that the director of Dom Distributing was Guy Nathan Stork, who was born in 1982 and resided in rented premises at 22 Romley Place, Ambarvale.
 
The Cleggs lodged a writ with the Civil Claims Court Registry on 17 June. However, on 16 July, the Cleggs were told that Dom Distributing's business premises had been vacated. Goods inside had been sold to recover other debts, Humpherson said.
 
The Cleggs had also approached the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal for an order to be served to Stork's private address, he said.
 
“They discovered subsequently that Stork had left the address,” Humpherson said.
 
Civil Claims Court had since tried to get monies from Dom Distributing's bank account, only discovering that its account, at Illawarra Credit Union, had been closed in July, he said.
 
It was not known how many Fair Trading complaints had been laid against Dom Distributing, due to privacy laws, he added.
 
“It seems obvious from the information made available to me that Mr Stork is little better than a crook and that no stone should be left unturned in pursuing him and Dom Distributing Pty Ltd,” Humpherson said.
 
Former customer Robert Clegg was contacted by CRN for further comment but had not returned phone calls at press-time.
 
However, a spokesperson for Humpherson said that there had been no further developments in the situation or compensation paid to the Cleggs “to the best of her knowledge”.
 
Dom Distributing was first registered as a private company in 2000. It has changed its official business address three times but not following the ASIC investigation.
 
Liquidator Deloitte was contacted for comment but had not replied at press-time.