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# Face of the Day
- URL: https://goodoil.news/face-of-the-day-784/
- Published: 2023-07-18T18:30:51.000Z
- Updated: 2023-07-18T02:43:30.000Z
- Author: Good Oil Staff
- Tags: Business, NZ, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-16 22:22

> Liquidators sifting through the crumbled wreckage of Eric Watson’s business empire have instructed lawyers to begin bankruptcy proceedings.  
>  
> Watson, formerly New Zealand’s most famous businessman, has suffered a series of catastrophic setbacks in recent years – major court defeats against the New Zealand taxman, wrangles with his former business partner Sir Owen Glenn and a live complaint of insider trading from the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States.  
>  
> It was the tax dispute – crystalised in 2019 in the High Court that ruled Watson’s Cullen Group owed $112 million in back taxes – that triggered the appointment of liquidators KPMG in December of that year first to the Cullen Group, then to a further 20 connected companies.  
>  
> The eighth report by KPMG into their administration of group notes entities span New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the US and the British Virgin Islands.  
>  
> In February, liquidators applied in the High Court at Auckland for, and were granted with no opposition, summary judgement against Watson personally after identifying transfers worth $60m from Cullen Investments to the businessman.  
>  
> “Accordingly, the liquidators have instructed their solicitors to initiate bankruptcy proceedings,” the report states.  
>  
> NZ Herald

[Read more here](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/bankruptcy-looms-for-eric-watson/OF63JAUUVNG25GKDQG6YWAOLXQ/?ref=goodoil.news). Discuss it on *The BFD.*

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