Former Sydney director Adriana Benhamou Weiss has been convicted of three counts of the falsification of books while an officer of interior design business Benhamou Designs Pty Ltd (ACN 167 579 893).
On 9 December 2022, Ms Weiss was sentenced to ten months imprisonment and released immediately after a recognisance release order was issued, with the conditions of forfeiting $1000, undertaking to be of good behaviour for 18 months and paying a fine of $20,000. Her earlier guilty plea, made on 21 June 2022, was taken into consideration in sentencing.
Between the end of October 2016 and early December 2016, she directed an employee of her firm to create false financial records relating to the affairs of Benhamou Designs, being ten receipt of funds transfer documents which showed payments made by Benhamou Designs to suppliers and contractors in an amount of approximately $270,000 that had not been made.
Benhamou Designs went into liquidation on 4 July 2018.
In sentencing Ms Weiss, Judge Fitzsimmons SC of the Sydney District Court noted that the offending enlisted the services of a vulnerable and susceptible young employee to engage in repeated acts of falsification involving not insubstantial funds. His Honour found that the false documents were used to avoid accountability regarding major projects where substantial funds had been paid, in good faith, to Ms Benhamou Weiss’s business.
As a result of her conviction, Ms Benhamou Weiss is automatically disqualified from being a company director until 9 December 2027.
The matter was prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
Background
ASIC’s investigation was aided by a supplementary report lodged by Benhamou Design’s liquidator. ASIC assisted the liquidator in preparing the supplementary report by providing funding from the Assetless Administration Fund.
At the time of the conduct, concealing, destroying, mutilating, or falsifying securities or books, contrary to s1307(1) of the Corporations Act carried a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment and/or a fine of $18,000.
