A former director Trio/Astarra who departed his role well before its collapse has threatened legal action against the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and called for an independent Inquiry into the regulation of the superannuation industry.
The former director, David Millhouse, has issued a media release saying he will launch legal action against APRA, "based on personal financial losses of more than $10 million and the effect of APRA's alleged failings on his hard-earned and long-standing reputation as a company director".
At the same time, Millhouse has urged trustee company directors "who value their reputation to get out now", claiming that favourable regulatory reviews could not be relied upon from APRA, and that the Trio collapse could easily happen again.
Millhouse claimed that he had been seeking to assist APRA with respect to its review of the 2009 Trio collapse where he had been an investor and unpaid non-executive director between 2004 and 2005.
However, he said the regulator had this week sought an enforceable undertaking from him which he claimed was "designed to deny him a role in the superannuation industry for a period of time".
"This is despite APRA saying that Mr Millhouse was not in any way associated with the fraud which caused Trio to collapse in 2009," his media statement said.
Millhouse said this was in no way acceptable to him because he was not a director when Trio collapsed and could not see how he could be held in any way responsible.
"Corporate governance issues at Trio were well documented in Board minutes and the documents, on several occasions and were available to APRA," his statement said. "I was not a director of Trio at the time of its collapse in 2009 but in 2005 had raised concerns, in writing, which were material to governance and prudential capital matters relevant to the granting of Trio's Responsible Superannuation Entity licence by APRA.
"The regulator failed to pick warning signs which were clearly noted by me and contained in Board minutes. I now have to deal with the consequences of a company which defrauded its investors long after I departed both as an investor and a non-executive director," Millhouse said
"Someone does need to be held to account for this and it needs to be APRA. As a regulator, how did they fail to see what I could see in 2005?" he said.
