1975–2001
1975: Alan Bond narrowly escapes financial ruin. He determines to protect his fortune. Two Alan Bond family trusts are set up in Australia. The Bonds’ family house is the No 1 Trust’s first asset.
1979: Bond’s family lawyer, Harry Lodge at Parker & Parker, instructs Geoffrey Davies of Touche Ross in Jersey to set up Alan Bond’s first offshore trust.
May 1982: Alan Bond instructs Touche Ross in Jersey ‘to accept instructions from Robert Ashley Pearce concerning any matters associated with me’. Pearce is managing director of Bond’s master private company, Dallhold Investments.
1983: Lodge and Pearce go to Jersey to set up a trust for Alan Bond. Icarus Trust owns 14 Selwood Place, Chelsea, where the Bond family live throughout the 1980s.
July 1984: Kirk Holdings is set up for Alan Bond in Jersey. It owns paintings, horses and houses for Bond. It also has millions of dollars in accounts at the Allied Irish Banks in St Helier, Jersey.
November 1986: Jurg Bollag takes over Bond’s offshore finances. He sets up a company called Crasujo in Zug, which appears to be an acronym for Bond’s children: Craig, Susanne and John, or Jody.
1987: In January, Crasujo’s name is changed to JF Consulting. In February, Bond writes to Touche Ross in Jersey telling them to accept instructions ‘in relation to my affairs’ from Robert Pearce, John Bond, Harry Lodge and Jurg Bollag. Bollag sets up Juno Equities, a Panamanian company run from Jersey, to buy a Chelsea apartment for Bond’s girlfriend, Diana Bliss.
Huge amounts of money wash through Kirk’s Jersey bank accounts. Approximately $50 million pass through in the last two months of 1986 and first five months of 1987. Some of this money is sent to Switzerland.
April 1987: SIDRO Anstalt is set up by Bollag in Liechtenstein. It has an account at the Private Trust Bank in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. There is evidence that the company is a front for Bond.
June 1987: Bond grants Bollag an option to buy the debts of the Greenvale Nickel Project for $3 million. The option is described by Bond in a 1991 court action as being worth $700 million. It would allow huge amounts of cash to flow offshore, tax-free, to an Isle of Man company called Metal Traders Ltd, which Bollag runs from Zug, Switzerland.
October 1987: World stock markets crash. Bond Corporation Holdings is in trouble. It resorts to creating artificial profits to keep its shareholders happy.
1988: Bond’s business empire is running desperately short of cash. In April, Bond Corporation Holdings buys 19.9 per cent of the Bell Group from Robert Holmes à Court in an attempt to grab almost $2 billion held by its subsidiary, Bell Resources. The Western Australian State Government Insurance Commission also buys 19.9 per cent, giving them and Bond effective control. The National Companies and Securities Commission launches an inquiry but agrees not to proceed if Bond bids for the rest of Bell Group’s shares.
By August, Alan Bond has installed himself as chairman of Bell Group and Bell Resources, with Peter Beckwith, Tony Oates and Peter Mitchell as directors. They start stripping cash out of Bell Resources. By February 1989, $1,200 million will have been removed, in the biggest corporate fraud in Australian history.
May 1988: Susanne Bond and Armand Leone get divorced. A court in New Jersey, USA, hears allegations that Jurg Bollag manages Bond’s offshore finances. Alan Bond says Bollag is just a good friend who buys horses and lets Susanne ride them. Armand Leone says Bollag sent them money whenever they asked for it, and alleges Bollag is just a front for Bond.
November 1988: Dallhold purchases Manet’s La Promenade for $2.4 million, about one-sixth of its market price, from the finance company that has been leasing it to the Bond Group. All the lease payments since 1983 have been paid by Bond Corporation Holdings, but Alan’s private company will reap the profit when the painting is sold. Bond Corp shareholders are cheated out of $15 million.
Dallhold defaults on a $30 million loan from National Australia Bank. Alan Bond meets the bank’s chairman, Don Argus, and the loan is rescheduled. Lonrho, a UK company Bond is trying to take over, says that Bond’s business empire is insolvent.
December 1988: Lonrho’s analysis of Bond Corporation Holdings concludes that the group has assets of $8.7 billion and borrowings of $12 billion, which makes it worth minus $3.3 billion. It is also paying $1.2 billion in interest a year and pulling in less than half that in earnings.
Despite his empire being broke, Alan Bond gives $4.3 million worth of diamonds to his wife Eileen, including a $1.5 million ring. He also gives a $420,000 Bentley Turbo to Eileen, a $350,000 bracelet to Susanne and $300,000 in cash to someone whose identity he can’t recall in 1992.
March 1989: ABC TV Four Corners report reveals that $154 million of Bond Group’s $273 million profits in 1987–88 were not profits at all, but were manufactured in bogus deals to keep the shareholders and banks happy.
April 1989: $750,000 passes through Alan Bond’s account at Arbuthnot Latham Bank in London on its way to Jurg Bollag at the Zuger Kantonal Bank in Zug, Switzerland. Bond’s account at Arbuthnot Latham is labelled Alan Bond, c/o J Bollag.
May 1989: Bond Corporation Holdings can’t pay its dividend to shareholders of $34 million because it has no money. Bell Resources, which has now ‘lent’ some $1,200 million to Bond, can’t pay its dividend either.
May 1989: Australian Ratings downgrades the Bond Group to a CCC rating, from which no Australian company has ever recovered. Baring Securities Australia concludes that the Bond Group has a negative net worth of $1.80 per share. Dallhold defaults on a US$10 million loan from Elders Finance and on two $25 million loans from Toronto Dominion Bank and R&I Bank.
June 1989: Lonrho’s second report says that Bond Corporation Holdings’s negative net worth is $5.31 a share and getting worse.
October 1989: Auditors raise questions over sale of Manet’s La Promenade. They demand that bogus ‘profits’ of the previous year be reversed. Bond Group announces record loss of nearly $1 billion. Bond is seen in Perth’s Mediterranean restaurant laughing and joking. Later, he is seen kicking up his heels with Tracey Tyler, whose friend says, ‘Alan can’t be bust—he’s just bought Tracey a house and a new mink coat’.
November 1989: Bond Group accounts are published. Auditors express ‘some doubt that the Bond Group will be able to continue as a going concern’. Van Gogh’s Irises is repossessed.
December 1989: Two valuable Bond paintings, Glover’s Natives in the Eucalypt Forest and Chazal’s Portrait of Matthew Flinders, together worth around $1.5 million, are shipped to Jurg Bollag in Switzerland after he claims that his Isle of Man company, Firstmark, owns them. The paintings, which were bought by Alan’s Jersey company Kirk Holdings in 1984 and 1987 respectively, are not declared to Bond’s trustee in 1992 when he goes bankrupt.
Seven Bond Corp artworks, including Webber’s Portrait of Captain Cook, are sold to George Way’s gallery in Fremantle for $922,500, or one-sixth of their market value of $6 million. Way allegedly receives a $50,000 fee, while Bond Corp’s managing director, Peter Beckwith, gets $250,000 to allow the transaction to proceed. The paintings are flown to London on 6 January 1990, where they will be sold by Bond’s art dealer, Angela Nevill, on instructions of Jurg Bollag and Alan Bond.
Receivers are appointed to Bond Brewing Holdings, which owes $800 million to the National Australia Bank and others. The action threatens to bring down the Bond Group, since Bond Brewing Holdings provides almost all the cash. In March, the receivers are removed by the court, because the banks are judged to have acted too hastily.
January 1990: Standard Chartered Bank calls in receivers to Dallhold’s nickel companies over a US$50 million debt. This also threatens to bring down Bond Group, but Hongkong Bank, Tricontinental and the Bank of New Zealand agree to assume the debt and lend more money under a new syndicated US$ loan agreement (SULA). A condition is that Bond signs a personal guarantee for US$194 million. This will bankrupt him two years later.
Alan Bond gives an interview to Teresa Poole of London’s Independent newspaper. He looks fit, healthy, unruffled, and certainly not contrite. He says he won’t go bankrupt.
March 1990: Federal government sets up committee under John Sulan QC to investigate the cash strip of $1,200 million from Bell Resources.
May 1990: The first interest payment of $7.9 million is due on the SULA loan. The banks agree to roll it over.
June 1990: Bond gives Tracey Tyler a $93,000 Mercedes Benz 190E Sportster.
August 1990: Second interest payment on SULA loan is rolled over; $16 million is now unpaid.
August 1990: Bond is forced out of the Bond Group. He receives a payout of $758,756 net of tax. Half a million dollars of that is his redundancy payment. The rest is accumulated long-service leave. He also gets $2.36 million paid into his super fund.
September 1990: Bond, Oates and Mitchell are forced to resign as directors of Bond Corporation Holdings. The group records a $2.2 billion loss, the biggest in Australian corporate history. Shortly afterwards, it is put into receivership. Expected deficiency is $3.7 billion for Bond Corporation Holdings. It is more like $6 billion if Dallhold, Bell and Alan Bond are included.
December 1990: Bond is charged with dishonestly inducing Brian Coppin to commit money to the rescue of Rothwells Bank in 1987.
March 1991: The SULA banks issue a notice of demand to Dallhold nickel companies for payment of US$335 million owing on their February 1990 loan. No interest has been paid and $35 million is now owing. Four days later, the banks call in Alan Bond’s US$194 million personal guarantee.
June 1991: Richard England, liquidator of Holmes à Court’s old company JN Taylor, sues Bond, Tony Oates and Peter Mitchell, as former directors, for $250 million damages. They have lent $288 million of JN Taylor’s money to the Bond Group and Dallhold between December 1989 and March 1990, which will not be repaid.
John Sulan QC hands his report to the Australian Securities Commission (ASC), whose chairman, Tony Hartnell, concludes that offences have been committed.
July 1991: Alan Bond is removed as a beneficiary of the Bond family’s Alpha and Beta trusts, which own at least $31 million worth of assets, including the Bonds’ $7 million family house and $10 million worth of farmland at Dandaragan in Western Australia. The next day, the bailiffs move into Dallhold, Bond’s master private company, and a liquidator is appointed.
September 1991: Judgement is given in the New South Wales Supreme Court against Bond on the US$194 million personal guarantee. The first attempt is made to serve him with a bankruptcy notice. A process server, Kevin Munns, chases Bond through the streets of Nedlands, Perth, and they clash outside a police station.
November 1991: Western Australian police, chasing millions of dollars that Laurie Connell has looted from Rothwells, ask Swiss authorities to obtain bank documents from Zug. These reveal an account at Zuger Kantonal Bank in the name of Jurg Bollag, held ‘on behalf of Alan Bond’.
December 1991: The New South Wales Court of Appeal rejects Bond’s appeal against the September judgement on the US$194 million personal guarantee. Bond is also denied leave to appeal to the High Court. A new bankruptcy notice is issued. Process server Basil Faulkner sits outside Bond’s house for five days over Christmas. Later, solicitor Hamish Young from Mallesons serves notice on Bond at Sydney airport.
January 1992: Bond petitions Federal Court to set aside the latest bankruptcy notice on the grounds that the banks’ lawyers have used the wrong exchange rate to convert the debt from US dollars into Australian dollars.
February 1992: The ASC delivers a 600-page report on Bond Group to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. The ASC statement says police in South Australia and Western Australia have been investigating Bond since mid-1991, as a result of which, ‘the ASC has identified major breaches of the law that may give rise to criminal prosecution of a number of individuals who formerly held office in the Bond group of companies’. Murray Allen, head of the ASC in Western Australia, says it will be only a matter of weeks before a decision is taken to prosecute.
Bond travels to Los Angeles, San Diego, Tulsa, New York and London with Di Bliss. He is seen shouting a meal for friends at a restaurant in New York.
March 1992: Justice Morling in the Federal Court rejects Bond’s attempt to have bankruptcy notice set aside. Bond appeals to full court, which rules against him. Another bankruptcy notice is issued. Bond is in London, staying at 14 Selwood Place, Chelsea. His friend Jurg Bollag emerges and hits Sydney Morning Herald photographer Nigel Marple. Bond denies that anyone is trying to serve him with a bankruptcy notice. He also denies that he owns Selwood Place. Bankruptcy notice is served on Bond’s lawyers in Australia instead.
April 1992: Bond returns to Perth to give evidence to Western Australian Royal Commission into WA Inc. In Sydney, the Federal Court makes him bankrupt. Robert Ramsay of accounting firm Bird Cameron in Melbourne is appointed trustee of Bond’s estate. His personal debts of $622 million are a record. Ramsay asks Bond for statements relating to any bank accounts in the UK, the British Virgin Islands, Switzerland or anywhere else in the world. Bond replies by letter, ‘I have no such bank accounts’.
May 1992: Ramsay writes to Credit Suisse in Davos and Zuger Kantonal Bank in Zug, Switzerland, asking them to give details of any accounts held by Bond or on his behalf, and telling them to freeze any funds. They refuse to help. Back in Australia, Bond is sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail over the Rothwells rescue.
June 1992: Ramsay takes legal action to claim Bond’s $2.7 million super fund. The trustees of the fund pass a resolution that none of the money will be paid to Bond’s bankrupt estate.
August 1992: Bond is released from prison after ninety days. A retrial is ordered on the Rothwells charges. He is acquitted in November.
September 1992: Ramsay asks the Federal Court in Australia to send letters of request to courts in Jersey, Guernsey, England, Switzerland and New York, asking them for assistance. He asks for the application to be kept secret because he is concerned that assets may be moved and files destroyed. The Federal Court agrees.
November 1992: Federal Court rules that Bond’s $2.7 million super fund belongs to his creditors. Bond appeals.
February 1993: Bond is due to be examined on oath in the Federal Court by Ramsay’s lawyers, who want to ask about foreign bank accounts and assets. The examination is postponed because Bond is sick—he has open-heart surgery at Royal Perth Hospital to replace a heart valve.
May 1993: Alan Bond’s younger daughter, Jody, is married in Perth. Bond looks fit and healthy at the wedding.
June 1993: Bond is charged in Perth with fraud over Manet painting, La Promenade. Bond tells the author outside the court, ‘you mention Bollag in your [Four Corners] program and I’ll sue’.
July 1993: ABC TV’s Four Corners reveals how Bollag runs a network of offshore companies holding millions of dollars of assets for Bond and his family—including high-priced horses, an Elizabethan manor called Upp Hall, a house in London, and various bank accounts in Jersey, London and Switzerland. Bond does not sue.
Webber’s Portrait of Captain Cook surfaces in Switzerland. Robert Bleakley, then managing director of Sotheby’s Australia, offers it to the National Gallery of Australia for $3 million, then reduces the price to $1.6 million. Bleakley says the owner is unknown, and Bollag is not the agent he is negotiating with. He is in fact negotiating with Bond’s art dealer, Angela Nevill. The painting is in a high-security bonded warehouse in Zurich.
August 1993: Administrative Appeals Tribunal tells Bond he must pay half his income to his creditors. It raises the amount payable from $208,866 to $344,851, based on Ramsay’s new estimate that Bond has received $713,390 from friends like Jurg Bollag and Graham Ferguson Lacey. Bond appeals.
September 1993: Ramsay asks Royal Court of Jersey for a secret court order to examine two partners of Touche Ross in St Helier about Bond’s offshore finances. In Australia, the Federal Court rejects Bond’s appeal over his super fund. Bond phones Ramsay to offer settlement to creditors.
October 1993: Psychologist Tim Watson-Munro tells Bond’s lawyers Bond is unfit to face examination by Ramsay because he is anxious, depressed and has brain damage. Alan’s friend Dr John Saunders agrees. Bond flies to St Bees Island with Di Bliss and negotiates to buy the island. The owners say he is ‘as sharp as a tack’.
November 1993: Ramsay flies to Jersey to examine the two accountants at Touche Ross who have been running the Bond/Bollag companies. They identify Kirk Holdings as being ‘for the benefit of Mr Bond’. They give evidence that the companies and trusts were set up for Bond in the early 1980s and that Bollag took over in late 1986. They produce a handwritten letter, signed by Alan Bond in February 1987, telling Touche Ross to accept instructions from Bollag in relation to Bond’s affairs.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) start chasing Bond. They name the case Operation Oxide. They have learned about Swiss documents showing Bond had a Swiss bank account containing millions of dollars in the late 1980s.
December 1993: Bond due to face court on Manet fraud charges. Lawyers argue that he should not have to face trial because he is depressed, suicidal and brain-damaged. Tim Watson-Munro testifies that Bond has severe memory loss and could not run a corner store. Trial is postponed for six months. Later that day, Bond gets angry with a Perth TV reporter, snatches her microphone and hurls it across a car park.
Bond is forced to direct Jurg Bollag to hand over all money and assets held by him to his trustee in bankruptcy. The letter has been drafted by Ramsay, and the Federal Court has ordered Bond to sign it. Bollag replies that it would be illegal for him to comply with the request unless ordered by a court to do so. Ramsay also gets short shrift from the Zuger Kantonal Bank.
January 1994: Bond is examined by a psychiatrist appointed by the Federal Court to determine whether he is fit enough to face his bankruptcy examination. Bond bursts into tears under questioning and stops the interview.
February 1994: Deadline expires to charge Bond over Bell cash strip. It is now five years from last transaction. Bond is taken to private hospital in Perth, suffering ‘severe major depression’. He cheers himself up by making phone calls to Russia in the middle of the night.
April 1994: Federal Court is due to hear whether Bond is fit to face examination. Justice Sheppard refuses to suppress Bond’s psychiatric reports. Bond agrees to face examination after all.
May 1994: Bond is examined on oath in the Federal Court in Sydney. He is asked about the network of offshore companies and bank accounts. He can’t recall a thing. Back at the hotel, his phone runs hot. Between 8 May and 14 May he makes sixty-five international calls, including a $66.50 call to a public phone box at Zurich railway station.
Bond’s girlfriend, Diana Bliss, delivers $130,000 in a hatbox to Luke Atkins for one of Alan’s attempted business deals.
May–June 1994: Bond is back in court in Western Australia on the Manet charges, arguing he’s unfit to face trial. He collapses on his first day in court. The prosecution reveals he made calls to Moscow while in hospital for depression in February, and that he was then finalising negotiations to buy St Bees Island off the Queensland coast. The island’s owners tell the court that Bond was mentally and physically fine and the toughest businessman they’ve ever dealt with. They say he was jogging and swimming just two days before his court collapse. Magistrate rules that Bond is capable of standing trial.
June 1994: Bond’s creditors agree to take legal action in Switzerland to recover assets from Bollag.
September 1994: The AFP investigators chasing Bond for concealing assets from his creditors ask Swiss police to obtain records from Zuger Kantonal Bank, and carry out searches on Bollag’s house and offices. They also ask for Bollag to be examined on oath about his relationship with Bond.
The AFP raid fourteen houses, offices and cars in Sydney and Perth. Their search warrants allege that Alan and others have conspired to defeat the bankruptcy laws.
October 1994: Bond wins appeal in the Federal Court. He will not have to pay his creditors $345,079, which is half the $713,390 that he has received from Bollag and others. The law is apparently badly drafted.
November 1994: George Caddy, the Official Receiver for New South Wales, issues notices to the AFP to hand over documents seized from Bond’s home in the September raids. Pending full court hearing, Bond gets an injunction to prevent the handover.
November 1994: Bond asks for his passport back so he can work offshore as a consultant for a mysterious Canadian company, Tri Kal International. The Federal Court turns him down.
December 1994: Swiss police raid Bollag’s house and offices. Zuger Kantonal Bank agrees to hand over documents. Bond makes offer of $9.25 million to settle debts owed by Dallhold and his bankrupt estate. In exchange, Dallhold liquidator will have to drop legal claims against Bond family for $53.8 million.
Dallhold creditors accept Bond’s proposal, which works out at 1.3 cents in the dollar. The deal is conditional on Bond’s personal creditors also agreeing to settle. Their vote is postponed because Bond hasn’t got the numbers.
Justice Sheppard in the Federal Court rules that Bond has to give details of the phone calls he made at the time of his bankruptcy examination in May 1994. He also has to tell the AFP to hand over documents seized from his home in September 1994. Bond appeals.
The West Australian publishes a wide-ranging interview with Bond in which he blames the banks for his demise, and politicians for persecuting him since his collapse. Bond repeats his story that Bollag is just a good friend, and a business colleague. He also says he is much better. ‘It just takes time … I was quite ill six months ago. I’m much better now, very much better.’
January 1995: Bond is at last charged with stripping money from Bell Resources. He is arraigned at East Perth Magistrates’ Court on a Saturday morning. It has taken six years to complete the investigations, and the acting Attorney General, Duncan Kerr, has waived the normal five-year time limit on Companies Code offences. Bond has to put up $500,000 bail and report weekly to Fremantle police station. But, unlike most people in this position, he is allowed to do it by phone. Tony Oates and Peter Mitchell, fellow Bell Resources directors, are also charged, but Oates is in Poland, Mitchell in the USA.
Bond meets Ramsay in Sydney to answer questions about the documents seized from his home by the AFP. He has given an undertaking that he has no assets other than those already disclosed. But the AFP documents indicate the possibility of bank accounts in Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
Ramsay sends a letter to creditors advising them to vote against the settlement. The letter reveals details of almost two dozen schemes that Bond has been involved in. Ramsay tells creditors, ‘there are very strong grounds for believing that monies held by or on behalf of Mr Bond or controlled by him, were transferred to Switzerland’. He points out that these amounts ‘far exceed the amount which Mr Bond is currently offering to creditors’.
Ramsay applies to John McKechnie, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Western Australia, to hand over documents obtained by Rothwells Task Force investigator Joseph Lieberfreund between 1991 and 1993. The documents come from Jersey and Switzerland and show details of a Swiss bank account held for Bond. The problem is that they have been obtained in connection with a prosecution of Laurie Connell and can’t be used in any other case without Swiss approval. The Swiss won’t give it.
Bond’s creditors meet again. The vote is postponed once more.
February 1995: The Federal Court in Melbourne decides that Ramsay can see all the papers seized by the AFP—including those from Bond’s associates. Ramsay has only two days to read them and write a summary for creditors.
Bond’s creditors meet again in Sydney. This time the vote takes place and Bond is discharged. Thirteen creditors representing 88 per cent of the debt vote to let him off. Only eight, including the Australian Taxation Office, are game to continue the chase.
Acting Attorney General Duncan Kerr tells parliament that ‘the Australian Federal Police is conducting an investigation into allegations that Mr Bond committed offences under the Bankruptcy Act’. He warns Bond that if any assets are discovered, criminal charges will follow and the bankruptcy can be reactivated.
March 1995: John Bond meets Jurg Bollag in Singapore. Bollag’s role in Bond’s offshore financial affairs is allegedly being wound down.
$4.3 million is allegedly moved from SIDRO Anstalt in Liechtenstein via the British Virgin Islands and Texas to Bond companies in Australia. Bollag, Craig Bond and John Bond are allegedly involved.
Craig Bond sets up a new Bahamas company, SHC International, to own the Portrait of Captain Cook. He opens a bank account in Jersey for the company.
Ramsay tells Channel 9’s Business Sunday that it is just a matter of time before the Swiss documents come into the public arena, possibly revealing undisclosed assets. He says he was only a month to six weeks away from getting them. He also says the documents handed over by the AFP show clear evidence of money transfers and bank accounts. The implication is that he will soon have Bond back in court.
Bond is committed for trial on four fraud and dishonesty charges over Manet’s La Promenade. He looks fit and chirpy now that he’s no longer trying to convince a court he’s too sick to appear.
April 1995: Bond marries Diana Bliss on Easter Saturday in Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. His family stay away.
The Portrait of Captain Cook is moved to Christie’s high-security warehouse in London, along with Chazal’s missing Portrait of Matthew Flinders. Craig Bond pays the storage bill with a cheque drawn on his personal UK bank account.
June 1995: Bond’s lawyers take action in Switzerland and Australia to keep the Zuger Kantonal Bank documents secret on the grounds that the bankruptcy has been annulled. They also try to stop the AFP’s investigation.
September 1995: The first dividend is paid to Bond’s creditors at the rate of .000415293 cents in the dollar, or 4 cents for every $10,000 owed.
November 1995: John Lord, liquidator of Dallhold, has virtually completed a 200-page report on the conduct of Dallhold’s directors. It canvasses the possibility that Bond has committed a number of criminal offences, such as trading while insolvent, and breaching his fiduciary duty.
January 1996: Bond and Peter Mitchell are committed for trial on $1,200 million Bell fraud charges. Magistrate Ronald J Gething says a jury might conclude that their conduct was ‘dishonest’, ‘deceitful’, ‘very imprudent and irresponsible’ and that it demonstrated an ‘extreme breach of duty’.
Bond Corporation Holdings liquidator, Richard England, starts secret action in Supreme Court of South Australia, alleging fraud by Alan and Craig Bond over thirteen missing Bond Corp artworks, valued at $6 million.
February 1996: Bond and Bollag lose action in Federal Court to stop Bollag being questioned in Switzerland.
March 1996: A lawyer acting for Craig Bond attempts to sell the Flinders portrait to the Art Gallery of South Australia for $600,000. In London, the Serious Fraud Office and the AFP raid the offices of Bond’s art dealer, Nevill Keating Pictures, and find storage receipts for the missing Portrait of Captain Cook. Craig Bond is examined on oath about the missing paintings in the South Australian Supreme Court for the first time.
May 1996: Bond Corp liquidator obtains secret UK court order to secure the Captain Cook and the Flinders portraits. Both paintings remain at Christie’s, but no one is allowed to disclose their whereabouts.
August 1996: Bond is jailed for three years over Manet’s La Promenade after being found guilty on two counts of fraud and two of deception. He is sent to Casuarina maximum-security prison.
Craig fails to turn up for his second examination in the Supreme Court of South Australia over the missing Bond Corp paintings. Bond’s art dealer, Angela Nevill, is examined in London. Robert Bleakley, then managing director of Sotheby’s Australia, is examined in Adelaide. Nancy Lake, director of Craig’s Bahamian company SHC, is examined in the Bahamas.
September 1996: Craig again fails to turn up for examination in the Supreme Court of South Australia.
October 1996: The AFP at last get their hands on documents obtained by Swiss authorities from Bollag and the Zuger Kantonal Bank. They seek a summons to examine Bollag.
US$600,000 is allegedly sent from the Private Trust Bank in Liechtenstein to Bond companies in Australia via Jersey and Texas. Bollag, Craig Bond and John Bond are allegedly involved.
December 1996: Bond goes quietly in Bell fraud trial. He pleads guilty to two counts of failing to act honestly as a company director, with intent to defraud. In exchange, the conspiracy to defraud charge is dropped, along with four Western Australian Companies Code charges. Mitchell, who has returned from the US, also pleads guilty. Tony Oates is still in Poland, trying to avoid extradition.
January 1997: Bollag is due to appear before Zug prosecutor Paul Kuhn. He fights summons in Swiss courts on the basis that they have no power to question him because no charges have yet been brought against Bond. He loses.
February 1997: Bond is jailed for four years over $1,200 million Bell cash strip.
Craig Bond fails for third time to turn up to the South Australian Supreme Court to be examined over the missing paintings. A summons for contempt of court is issued.
April 1997: Craig is finally examined. In Switzerland, Bollag appears before Zug prosecutor, Paul Kuhn, to answer questions put by the AFP. He stays silent, claiming privilege against self-incrimination. Bollag and Bond start legal action in an attempt to stop him having to take the stand again.
May 1997: Operation Oxide leader Andrew Tuohy resigns from the AFP. Statement of claim in the paintings case in the Supreme Court of South Australia reveals allegations of fraud by Alan and Craig Bond.
August 1997: Bond’s sentence on the Bell cash strip is increased from four to seven years after the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions appeals against the leniency of the sentence. The court rules that Justice Murray has given too much weight to Bond’s pleas of mitigation, because the crime is the very worst of its kind.
November 1997: Bollag appears again before Zug prosecutor and says he will answer questions, then claims privilege again. Back in Australia, Bond is flown in protective custody to Adelaide to face examination over the Portrait of Captain Cook.
July 1998: Tony Oates wins his legal battle against extradition on Bell fraud charges. Bond is attacked in Casuarina prison in an argument over use of the telephone.
August 1998: Transcript of Bollag’s interview with the Zug prosecutor in Switzerland is finally delivered to the AFP. They now discover how little he has said. More legal battles will be needed to force him to take the stand again. If he then defies the court, he will probably only be fined.
October 1998: The AFP abandon Operation Oxide. It has taken five years and $700,000 of taxpayers’ money. Police reckon they have little chance of convicting Bond without Bollag’s evidence, and little chance of making Bollag talk.
August 1999: Craig’s friend Peter Philpott is examined on oath in Texas by lawyers for the Bond Corp liquidator. He tells them that the two alleged money-laundering transactions in 1995 sent $5.1 million from Liechtenstein to Bond companies in Australia, via US companies he set up for Craig Bond.
October 1999: New statement of claim filed by Bond Corp liquidator in South Australian Supreme Court action over the missing paintings. It raises the money-laundering allegations for the first time.
March 2000: Bond is released from jail after an appeal to the High Court frees him on a legal technicality. He has served 1,298 days for the Manet and Bell charges combined, or roughly one day for every $1 million. Australian Women’s Weekly pays $50,000 for an exclusive interview.
Secrecy orders surrounding the Portrait of Captain Cook and the Portrait of Matthew Flinders are lifted. Both paintings are revealed to be in London. The press reveal money-laundering allegations for the first time. The AFP promise to look into them.
May 2000: The South Australian Supreme Court is asked to freeze assets of a Bond family company, Carindale Land Corporation, which has allegedly received the $5.1 million from Bollag in Liechtenstein.
June 2000: Justice Debelle in the Supreme Court of South Australia rules that the Portrait of Captain Cook belongs to Bond Corp.
August 2000: Portrait of Captain Cook returns to Australia. It has been purchased by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra for $5.3 million, and is unveiled by Prime Minister John Howard.
Bond flies to UK, intending to make it his home.
September 2000: Justice Debelle freezes assets of a Bond family company, Carindale Land Corporation, on the basis that there is a prima facie case of art fraud. Debelle says the $4.3 million money transfer from Liechtenstein via the British Virgin Islands and Texas to Brisbane is ‘a payment to Bond interests arranged by Bollag’.
Minister for Justice, Amanda Vanstone, promises that the AFP will examine the evidence on the money transfer and alleged art fraud, and decide whether to resume its investigations into Alan Bond.
October 2000: London’s Sunday Telegraph reveals Bond is planning a business comeback. A Bond family trust has bought the UK rights to an Australian money-lending business.
March 2001: Art fraud trial begins in Adelaide. Angela Nevill, Nancy Lake and Peter Philpott are all set to give evidence. Bond settles after two days, paying the liquidator $12 million.
April 2001: Sunday Herald Sun investigation reveals Alan and Diana Bliss share a $3 million penthouse opposite Kensington Palace. The building, which was bought by a British Virgin Islands company, Bonaparte Investments, in early 2000 for $10 million, is up for sale for $12.7 million. Guess who’s behind it. Alan Bond.