Imagine Joe is forking out $5million then one side is claiming it was donation, the other side says it was the loan. Now makes you wonder if you should invest in his companies (some went bust). Swindling, swindling all around, funny incest, hehe
================== Gutnick loan of $5m was not for profit: Yeshiva rabbi By Valerie Lawson May 7 2003
The tangled finances of the Yeshiva Centre in Bondi were the subject of desperate bailout attempts by a network of Sydney Jewish businessmen when it became clear that the Melbourne mining entrepreneur Rabbi Joseph Gutnick would demand repayment of a $5million loan.
The NSW Supreme Court was told yesterday that the rescue involved Rodney Adler, Richard Scheinberg and Harry Triguboff.
It became urgent at the end of 1999 when Yeshiva received a "hurry-up message" regarding Mr Gutnick's loan and the interest outstanding.
Yeshiva's dean and spiritual head, Rabbi Pinchus Feldman, told the court that Mr Gutnick had made the loan to "save" the non-profit Yeshiva Centre - which comprises schools, a synagogue and a rabbinical college - "not to make a profit on it."
It was "immoral, irreligious and unethical to take money from a charity," he said.
He did not believe Mr Gutnick would demand to be repaid because the loan was made under a "mutual religious covenant".
To break the agreement was to "rebel against God".
The two men, who are brothers-in-law, are haggling over a deal made in 1994 when the Commonwealth Bank was about to foreclose on $21.5million owed by Yeshiva.
Mr Gutnick and Mr Scheinberg each took over $5million of the $21.5million and, in return, became mortgagees over Yeshiva properties.
Rabbi Feldman said yesterday that the agreement with Mr Gutnick was also subject to a "written agreement [and] oral undertakings".
The oral undertakings meant Mr Gutnick waived his right to ever repay the principal or interest. He believed the dispute would be resolved in a rabbinical court and heard under Jewish law as it was "always subject to our religious covenant".
Mr Feldman yesterday completed five hours of cross-examination by counsel for Mr Gutnick, Bret Walker, SC.
When he left the witness box, many members of the Lubavitch Jewish community stood until he returned to his seat next to his wife, Pnina Feldman, who is Mr Gutnick's sister.
The hearing continues today.
================== Gutnick, sister in battle over $13.5m By Sharon Labi February 22 2003
"I'm ill from it" ... Pnina Feldman says the loan dispute with her brother Joseph, left, has torn the Gutnick family apart.
A bitter family feud is headed to trial with mining magnate Joe Gutnick fighting his sister over a $13.5million disputed loan.
Mr Gutnick's sister, Pnina Feldman, the founder of the diamond exploration company Diamond Rose, and her husband, Rabbi Pinchus Feldman, had sought to have the matter heard in a Jewish religious court.
But after four years of trying to recover the loan from the Yeshiva College, the Bondi school run by Rabbi and Mrs Feldman, a date was set yesterday for the case to be heard in the NSW Supreme Court.
The dispute stemmed from a $5million loan Mr Gutnick gave the school in 1994 at a time when it owed the Commonwealth Bank $24 million and was at risk of closure, both parties to the case said. He claims he is owed $13.5million - the original loan plus interest.
In exchange for the loan, Mr Gutnick was made the mortgagee of a number of Yeshiva's properties in Bondi. Last year, he tried to sell the properties to recoup his money but the Feldmans sought an injunction to block the sale. At the time, Mr Gutnick was believed to have been offered $8.5million for the blocks in Flood Street, Bondi.
Both parties said they regretted the case had come before the courts. Mrs Feldman said she remained hopeful of resolving it before a Jewish court of arbitration, out of the public eye.
She has already put the case to the Beth Din, or Jewish court of arbitration, in Israel, but the matter was not resolved.
"As religious Jews, that's where it should be; and as family, that's where we wanted it to be, not in the public eye," Mrs Feldman said.
"I'm ill from it. He's just doing this out of a vindictive vendetta. I'm the older sister. My husband and I have done nothing in our lives other than help him.
"For two rabbis to be fighting in the court I think is an absolute total disgrace for the Jewish people as a whole and for the individual family, and it's just torn our family completely apart."
Mr Gutnick's lawyer, Paul Ehrlich, said the Supreme Court case would determine whether Mr Gutnick was entitled to enforce the loan agreements.
"Mr Gutnick has been trying to achieve repayment of this debt since 1999, when it fell due, and Yeshiva has just been unwilling to repay the debt."
The Supreme Court yesterday set a trial date of May 5.
