* Article: Jennifer Sexton * From: The Sunday Telegraph link below * January 16, 2011 12:00AM
THREE years after being released from jail, Rodney Adler has again run into trouble with the corporate watchdog. He has been named in complaints filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission alleging a company prospectus seeking to raise $12 million on the stock market contains false and misleading statements.
The complaints describe Dynamic Agri Tech as a "pump and dump" whose associates have dubious corporate records and pay themselves excessive fees.
Zali Burrows, one of a group of investors who collectively lost their $600,000 seed investment, has claimed Adler was involved in stripping the company of its intellectual property and getting rid of shareholders.
"With the excessive loans, charges, director fees, I fear the investors will be treated in the same unfortunate manner as ... [the original seed company] shareholders," Ms Burrows says in her complaint. "The investors lured by the DAT prospectus are not given the opportunity to apply due diligence in researching the driving force behind DAT, and the locust carnage of companies they were involved in."
Adler, who is not a director of Dynamic Agri Tech, has claimed he was only an investor and consultant to the original company. When contacted, Adler, who served a three-year jail term for dishonesty over the collapse of insurer HIH, said he was unaware of the complaints and declined to make any comment.
Another investor, Brian Morris, says in his complaint to ASIC that Adler's proposed investment of $400,000 in the company in 2008 "extended to running and controlling the company [then called Almighty Fodder Ltd], with the key aim being to eventually get it listed on the ASX".
Dynamic Agri Tech company secretary and chairman Russell Manfield confirmed on Friday he had corresponded with ASIC regarding a complaint but claimed it had been "all resolved".
Mr Manfield was the subject of part of the complaint.
