Zyra Meka of Shepparton, Victoria has been disqualified from managing companies for four years due to her involvement in the failure of four companies.

Between December 2016 and October 2019, Mrs Meka was a director of four traffic consulting companies:

• Global Traffic (Vic) Pty Ltd (A.C.N. 169 936 556) (GTV);
• Global Traffic (Qld) Pty Ltd (A.C.N. 169 936 547) (GTQ)
• Global Traffic Australia Pty Ltd (A.C.N. 169 938 845) (GTA); and
• Global Road Safety Pty Ltd (A.C.N. 614 895 591) (GRS).

ASIC found that Mrs Meka had:

• failed to exercise her powers and discharge her duties with the degree of care and diligence required of a reasonable director in respect to each of the companies;

• failed to understand her directors’ duties to effectively manage and direct the companies;
• engaged in management duties of GRS from April 2019 to October 2019 while she was an undischarged bankrupt;
• failed to prevent GRS and GTA from trading while insolvent;
• failed to properly account for, provide for and pay the employee entitlements of GRS, totalling $928,893; and,
• failed to register GTA for payroll tax.

The total amount owed to creditors by the four companies exceeded $17 million, including more than $8.5 million owed to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), and over $1 million owed in payroll taxes. 

In deciding to disqualify Mrs Meka, ASIC relied on supplementary reports lodged by GTA’s liquidators, Luke Targett and Daniel Juratowitch of Cor Cordis, and GRS’s liquidators, Adrian Hunter and Robyn Eskine of Brooke Bird. ASIC assisted GRS’s liquidators to prepare a supplementary report by providing funding from the Assetless Administration Fund.

Ms Meka is disqualified from managing corporations until 25 October 2025.

Background

Section 206F of the Corporations Act allows ASIC to disqualify a person from managing corporations for up to five years if, within a seven year period, the person was an officer of two or more companies, and those companies were wound up and a liquidator provides a report to ASIC about the company’s inability to pay its debts.

ASIC also maintains a banned and disqualified persons register that provides information about people who have been disqualified from:

• involvement in the management of a corporation;
• auditing self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs); or
• practising in the financial services of credit industry.