MediaWeb director jailed for fraud

MediaWeb director jailed for fraud

Former director of MediaWeb Limited (MediaWeb), Victor John Clarke, has been sentenced in the Auckland District Court today to three years’ imprisonment.

Charges were laid against Mr Clarke by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in September this year. He had faced two false accounting charges, one charge of using a forged document and one charge of obtaining by deception. He pleaded guilty to those charges in October. They related to Mr Clarke’s conduct as a director of MediaWeb where he was responsible for overseeing the accounting and financial aspects of the business.

Mr Clarke falsified financial statements to present a positive picture of MediaWeb’s financial position, created fictitious entries in MediaWeb’s accounting system to obtain money from a lending institution, forged emails, and failed to disclose the true financial position of MediaWeb in order to obtain funding from a Trust.

SFO Director, Julie Read said, “Mr Clarke’s breaches of trust in relation to two separate entities enabled him to obtain funding and access to loan facilities of approximately $2.2 million. The use of such deception to support a business undermines confidence in the small business sector and generally only defers the failure of the business harming others in the process. Prosecutions such as this by the SFO serve to send a message that this type of conduct is not only detrimental to the perceptions of New Zealand business in general but also serious criminal conduct.”

ENDS

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