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Two men jailed in NZ's largest bribery case

Author
Matt Nippert, New Zealand Herald,
Publish Date
Wed, 22 Feb 2017, 11:30AM
Stephen Borlase, centre, and Murray Noone, right, were found guilty of giving and accepting bribes. Photo / Doug Sherring

Two men jailed in NZ's largest bribery case

Author
Matt Nippert, New Zealand Herald,
Publish Date
Wed, 22 Feb 2017, 11:30AM

Two men convicted of corruption in New Zealand's largest ever bribery case, involving more than $1 million given by a roading contractor to a senior manager at Auckland Transport, have been sent to prison.

LISTEN ABOVE AS NZ HERALD REPORTER MATT NIPPERT SPEAKS WITH LARRY WILLIAMS

Former council manager Murray Noone, and Projenz managing director Stephen Borlase were investigated by the Serious Fraud Office and in December found guilty on six and eight charges, respectively, of taking and giving bribes.

Justice Sally Fitzgerald this morning at the High Court at Auckland sentenced Borlase to five years six months and Noone to five years in prison.

She noted the sums involved exceeded any other domestic conviction for bribery or corruption conviction and caused damage to New Zealand's civic institution and international reputation.

"Offending of this nature has a wider, harming New Zealand's public reputation as a place where corruption is low of nonexistant," she said.

Serious Fraud Office director Julie Read said in a statement following the hearing that the case should sound a note of caution in other businesses.

"Improper hospitality and bribes such as this case can seem like part of business as usual and difficult to uncover but we suggest that every employee is responsible for identifying any red flags," she said.

Auckland Transport chief infrastructure officer Greg Edmonds, who had overseen Noone, said in a statement: "At the heart of this issue is a serious breach of trust by two individuals whose actions are in no way an indication of any sort of systemic failure."

The offending, over a seven year period, saw Borlase pay Noone around $100,000 annually in "consulting fees", in addition to numerous international trips and long lunches, when Noone was employed by Rodney District Council, and then Auckland Transport.

On the back of council contracts Borlase's firm grew rapidly from a small operation that barely broke even, to making annual profits of $3.8m in the year prior to the offending being detected.

The pair had claimed their financial relationship was above-board and involved consultancy work that was unrelated to the council contracts

Justice Fitzgerald, in delivering her verdict, said this explanation was "implausible". She said the lack of any documentation supporting seven years - and more than a million dollars - of claimed work by Noone "defies common sense".

During the course of an eight-week trial, Crown prosecutor Brian Dickey laid out what he considered to be a "culture of corruption" in the roading department at RDC and Auckland Transport centred on the two accused.

Dickey outlined hundreds of thousands of dollars in entertainment spending by Projenz on council staff, and in cross-examining Borlase claimed the arrangement had bound the pair tight.

The offending came to light after Noone took a holiday in 2013 and a colleague who took over his work expressed reservation over a number of payments to Projenz awaiting authorisation.

A subsequent investigation resulted in Noone's deputy Barrie George, admitting his receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars in undeclared gifts - mostly international travel - from Borlase.

The pair were later fired from their jobs and the matter was referred to the Serious Fraud Office.

George, who pleaded guilty prior to trial and gave evidence as a witness for the prosecution, told the court of the first time he had accepted a bribe from Borlase.

Last month anti-corruption pressure group Transparency International ranked New Zealand as the least-corrupt country on earth.

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