ALAN Bond, the man who perhaps best typified the excesses of corporate Australia during the 1980s as well as making a name for himself in Hong Kong, is in court once again. The once flamboyant businessman, who headed the former Hong Kong-listed Bond Corp International, is defending allegations that he and two former directors of his old flagship Bond Corp, participated in what is said to be the biggest fraud in Australian history. The trio is accused of stripping A$1 billion (about HK$5.88 billion) from Bell Resources, the company acquired from fellow Australian tycoon Robert Holmes in 1988, to prop up Bond Corp. In February, Bond was freed from bankruptcy when creditors accepted a $3.2 million offer to settle debts worth $622 million. On the second day of a preliminary hearing into the case yesterday, an angry Perth magistrate accused Mr Bond's lawyer of trying to intimidate him over the lawyer's demand that he quit because he had shown bias. Magistrate Ron Gething dismissed the application by Julian Burnside QC on Wednesday, but revived the matter at the start of yesterday's sitting. 'I didn't take kindly to the submission made by counsel about bias,' Mr Gething said. 'It's an attempt to intimidate this bench which we have seen before and it won't work.' See Page 11
