Conviction set aside for CEO accused of withholding entitlements from employees

A CEO accused of allegedly preventing his employees from recovering their entitlements had his criminal convictions set aside.

Geoffrey Thomas Parker, the former CEO of Bruck Textile Technologies, had his criminal conviction of preventing the recovery of employee entitlements set aside.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) confirmed the decision was made by the Victorian County Court on Tuesday, 9 December.

The court entered a judgment of acquittal.

Following an ASIC investigation, Parker was accused of allegedly entering into a transaction on or about 10 July 2014 to sell the assets of Bruck Textile to a related entity, Australian Textile Mills.

Bruck Textile was considered insolvent and placed into liquidation the following day, resulting in 58 employees losing their employment and access to entitlements, such as redundancy payments.

It was alleged that Parker entered into the transaction, along with the chair and chief financial officer, to sell the Bruck Textile assets in order to prevent or significantly reduce the amount of redundancy entitlements given to employees.

Charges against the chair and chief financial officer were discontinued in September.

Under the Commonwealth Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme, the Commonwealth advanced over $3.485 million towards paying Bruck Textile’s outstanding employee entitlements.