Moving towards the end of the largest retirement village collapse coming out of the GFC, four of the five directors of Prime Trust were fined $20,000 each while the fifth, Bill Lewski, was fined $230,000 by Justice Bernard Murphy in Melbourne.

But he has kept the $33M at the centre of the court case launched by ASIC.

Lewski created Prime Trust following his experience working with Ted Sent building investment groups that funded

Primelife into the largest village operator in the sector, now owned by Lend Lease.

He rapidly built a portfolio of approximately 40 villages which he floated in 2007. He then ‘verbally’ - with no paper record of a previous arrangement -  told the four other directors on the Prime Trust board that he deserved a success fee of $33M for the listing. He then simply took the $33M.  The directors were described to have ‘waved through the resolution which allowed a $33M breach of trust’.

Two years later Prime Trust collapsed with investors losing around $500 million.

Senior Liberal party operative Peter Clarke did not receive a ban as a company director even though he admitted giving untrue evidence under oath and ‘sat passively’ when the $33 million transaction took place.

The other three directors, Mark Butler, Kim Jacques and Michael Wooldridge (ex-Minister for Health in the Howard government) were each banned for four years.