Released December 1998.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), and the Corporate Affairs Commission before it, conducted one of its largest ever investigations, into the collapse of Spedley Securities, Spedley Holdings, GPI Leisure, Greater Pacific Investments and other companies. To give some idea of the scale of the investigation, the investigation team took over 6,500 pages of transcript during formal examinations, obtained hundreds of exhibits during the examinations and many other boxes of records using ASIC’s evidence gathering powers. The team also conducted informal interviews and took statements from many other people to gather the complex financial and accounting evidence needed to assess the causes of collapse of the companies being investigated and to bring charges against some of the people involved.

The results of those efforts - a number of successful prosecutions, banning orders and some civil action to appoint receivers - speak for themselves and have been reported on in the press.

In part, this report has been written to provide a concise summary of the causes of the collapse and ASIC’s actions following the collapse. But that is not the only purpose of preparing the report. While the events investigated occurred between 1985 and April 1989, the findings of the investigation provide some salutary lessons for corporate governance in this decade and beyond.

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