ATO seeks order to wind up Gore

THE Australian Taxation Office plans to seek a Federal Court order to bankrupt failed Gold Coast businessman Craig Gore.

The ATO flagged its intentions yesterday after Mr Gore’s creditors voted overwhelmingly to terminate his personal insolvency agreement to repay a fraction of the $495 million he owed.

Mr Gore’s trustee, accountant Anthony Warner, of insolvency firm CRS Insolvency Services, determined this month that Mr Gore had defaulted on a deal struck in late 2010.

Under that agreement, Mr Gore was required to repay just $3.3 million and deposit 30 per cent of any profits into a trust.

Some of Mr Gore’s biggest creditors, including the Mayfair Group and Trilogy Funds Management, had strongly pushed for Mr Gore to be bankrupted because it would give greater investigative powers to a trustee.

Mr Gore, who was bankrupt in the 1990s, said he had launched Federal Court action to challenge Mayfair’s $152 million debt claim. The next hearing in the matter has been set down for May 9.

“It is my opinion that the matters before the court ought to have been heard prior to any (creditors’) meeting taking place,” Mr Gore said.

But Mayfair chairman Shane Stone said yesterday Mr Gore’s challenge had no basis in fact or law.

He said a bankruptcy trustee could dig deeper in to Mr Gore’s business affairs and search for possible hidden assets.

”There’s more to be done on Gore and his accomplices,” Mr Stone said. ”We’d like to know where the money went. We would like to really understand just what went on.”