Strip criminal Graham of knighthood - Hide
In the wake of the Lombard Four sentencing yesterday, former ACT leader Rodney Hide has called for Sir Douglas Graham to be stripped of his knighthood.
"Douglas Graham is a convicted criminal. If knighthoods are to mean anything you cant have a convicted crook being called Sir," Mr Hide told NBR.
"It's not about Graham. It's about maintaining respect for our system of honours. It says a lot about the man that he hasn't asked the prime minister to remove it."
Feb 24: There are calls to strip Sir Douglas Graham of his knighthood following the former justice minister’s conviction of Securities Act charges.
Sir Douglas was one of four former Lombard Finance directors accused of making false statement prospectuses in the run-up to the finance company’s collapse.
In the aftermath of the guilty verdict commenters on the National Business Review have begun calling for a cancellation of his honour.
“Strip him of his Knighthood,” one said.
Knighthoods are technically awarded by the Queen, and in the case of New Zealand the Queen’s representative the Governer-General. Recommendations for honors are made by the cabinet honours committee.
Sir Douglas was awarded his knighthood in 1999 for services to the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process.
A knighthood can be removed only at the discretion of the Prime Minister.
John Key has said he will consider the matter, but not while elements of the Lombard case are still before the courts.
Recent precedent for the stripping of knighthoods comes from Britain, where former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Frank Goodwin had his title withdrawn earlier this month.
The Royal Bank of Scotland collapsed in the opening months of the global financial crisis, requiring a £45 billion government bailout.
Lombard Finance collapsed in 2008 owing 4400 investors about $127 million.
Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe was also stripped of his knighthood in 2010 after a repressive and violent campaign against political opponents left his country penniless.
As the guilty verdict was read out in the High Court in Wellington this morning Sir Douglas looked physically shaken.
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Comments and questions123
Knighthood for ripping many good New Zealanders off? Strip it off him and let the civil proceedings take him to the cleaners!
Let's be a bit more careful here.
There is a big difference between those crooks that deliberately took money for their own benefit, and an independent director who doesn't pick up an error in a Prospectus.
Yes, and send him down as well. Send ALL the Lombard gangsters down.
Failure to read the prospectus before siging is no excuse.
If you have not read it then don't sign it and don't collect your fee.
Maybe this should be a lesson to other major corp directors out there signing off company prospectus without doing their homework, while excepting huge fee's for their services.
A knighthood for his part in the treaty negotiations,it figures ... I say hang him ...
Let's wait for the judge to pass sentencing and his/her remarks before we start stringing up the directors. While Sir Douglas has been found guilty, his actions may well be defined as lower level. I think it would be uncharitable to punish him too heavily for what may have been a lesser negligent/poor performance on his part.
Mind you - I wasn't an investor. I can understand their anger and wanting revenge in lieu of repayment.
Lets give the man a chance.
He did right by us Maori.
He was a decent man in polirics and for that I think he will do the right thing.
All so quick to hang him look in the mirror and show some charity.
its impossible to have an accurate statement in a prospectus during a GFC.
GFC! come on...... don't you mean PONZI scheme? Totally misleading!
It's not as if he spied for the Russians.
So he started the Treaty gravy train for the legal industry and the 'noble well connected' maori oligarchs, and gets a knighthood
Watch as he says, I did not know, i just sat at meetings, it was the smart numbers people but I took the low interest loans, luxury cars, corporate expense account and directors fees, but failed to do my job please don't send my arse to jail. Those maori in jail don't know what I did for their overlords brothers..
Ask David Dougherty, some Iwi & "ripped off" investors about the "right thing".
prospectuses these days have to run to 70+ pages to satisfy the law. Anyone who has the skill and time to read through these tomes would most likely miss something, whatever their training. Much of the fault here lies with the executive who put detail or forecasts in the front of directors who would have to take even more time checking them out or taking independent advice. Fault also lies with investment advisers who didn't pick up the problems either. They seem to have got away with it.
To all those throwing dirt, have any of you ever read a prospectus? I suspect not. To others who say you get huge fees are a director, do you really know that’s truthful in this case? I suspect not. Pablo shows the most sense. Yes I was an investor in finance companies but not Lombard,
If you don't have the skills or the nouse to be a Finance Co Director, you should NOT be a Director, full stop. The real difference here is they are loosely playing with other peoples money. I seriously dought they would risk their own funds in these dodgy Companies.
He has helped Maori, so I say hang the crook!!
In response to repeat, it would be interesting to know if any of the directors of the company lost money when it folded and how much. Do you think they might tell us?
How do you charge investment advisers? The chain of checking the prospectus prior to them being public, was an auditor from a large (normally multi national) accounting firm who signed off on the companies balance sheet, then the prospectus went to the trustee company, who checked and signed off as being accurate, then to the securities commission, who signed off as being accurate, then the companies office who did the same. You would have to think that by the time it got to the adviser/public the document should/would be accurate. Question if all those who checked the prospectus could not find anything wrong, then how do you expect an adviser to find the mistake. I certainly don’t blame my adviser, I also read each prospectus 5 companies in which I invested.. Your comment is without basis.
Sir Douglas rolled over $14,000 of the $17,000 he had in Lombard before it collapsed.
What does this say about the man?
Why is there a debate? A knighthood is essentially an honour issued by the State, usually part of some political trade off. It has zero significance in the real world where merit and performance are the only currency. So, who cares what childish titles he chooses to receive or cling to. It is entirely up to you to make your own judgments about Doug Graham and establish your relationship with him accordingly.
then don't issue one and take other people's money
Yes to prospectus, fees & am an investor & luckily to date, have'nt lost anything.
Elderly family members/friends were "taken for a ride" by some very greedy people. These elderly had never played the stock market etc. Too late by time family found out to get their money out. In process of "sorting affairs" discovered that C+M paid triple commission etc to FA's. FA's were pushing to sign elderly up with promise of their investments covered by "Lloyds Insurance" so they wouldnt lose anything! RATS! Thousands down the drain.
Bernie Madoff and others got very long jail terms and will die there,
Doug and the NZ crooks will get 5 hours community service, a 10k fine and a telling off.
People may even disrespect them. Poor them.
What a vile, inhuman, irrelevant and racist comment, and cowardly as well Mr/Ms Anonymous.
ACC, Superannuation....they are all Ponzi schemes
Douglas Graham should fall on his sword.
The honorable thing to do is for him to return the knighthood before the embarrassment of having it striped off him. His conviction brings disrespect and ill repute to the status of "Knight" and he should act honorably.
Whilst I doubt he was 100% aware of what he was putting his name to that was no excuse. You take the directors fees you take the rap. Lesson for a few chappies looking to earn a few lazy quid with a cushy directorship in their retirement.
Surely he would fall on his sword(excuse the pun) and hand his Knighthood in wouldn't he?
Benmimi I totally agree, Douglas Graham should do the honorable thing and return the Knighthood. Lets wait and see!
Quite right, ex Minister of the crown is hardly an after the event badge of honour either in NZ.
You may get off scott free from complete incompetence in politics, but Sir Doug has rightly been called out, and is accountable out here with the plebs.
What a lot of racists read and comment on NBR! Bear in mind that Graham and co would almost certainly not have been found gulity under the allegedly more onerous Financial Markets Conduct Bill. The judge acknowledges this was error and negligence rather than criminal intent.
"You take the directors fees you take the rap." ... and if you take the investment you take the risk (but appreantly not any responsibility for your own actions, or research etc.)
How is that an excuse for a director, a director has laws and responsabilities to abide by, if you are not up to it don't accept the directorship. Expectations and enforcement of laws are much harsher for lesser discrepencies or ineptitude, how can excuses diminish the crime here and not elsewhere.
Doug Graham should fall on his sword.
Its the honorable thing to do before his knighthood is snatched from under his feet by default.
Not to do so brings dis-repute to the other Knights ...Lets hope he lives up to his tittle.
Doug Graham should fall on his sword.
Its the honorable thing to do before his knighthood is snatched from under his feet by default.
Not to do so brings dis-repute to the other Knights ...Lets hope he lives up to his tittle.
but if the prospectus was inaccurate / misleading which is the case here how can investors be accountable. That is why we have laws requiring these documents to be accurate and not misleading.
Are you suggesting we have no standards around public offer documents. NZ investors could be taken for a much bigger ride - we could all get some of that action.
I would be happy to sign off on this (morals aside) if there was no risk to me as a director.
The judge's judgment says:
The alleged offences are ones of strict liability so the Crown is not required to
prove any form of mental intent to distribute documents that were false or
misleading. Nor is it any part of the Crown‘s case that the conduct by the directors
in issuing the offer documents was other than honest. In the relevant respects, the
law has created criminal liability for what may be no more than a material
misjudgement about the accuracy and adequacy of the description of the state of
financial health of the company, as directors authorise it in offer documents.
There is not any reason at all to strip him of his knighthood. It is not even a negligence case.
Should we strip people of their honours - whether knighthoods or not - because they negligently crash a car?
He should not be stripped of his knighthood; he should give it up, voluntarily. If he has any "honour", that is.
Graham should have never got a knighthood in the first place now he is a convicted criminal he should definitely have to give it back
I have no doubt Sir Douglas is an honourable man whose biggest crime was one of naivete. Noone in their right mind would put him in the same category as the Bridgeport and Hanover guys. Management should take the lion's share of the blame as they misled everyone including their own directors.
It's a pretty safe bet that the auditors and lawyers (the only fatcats on the scene) were as usual asleep at the wheel having had another very good lunch - after drafting many pages of disclaimers to cover their own backsides.
Sir Doug has suffered a huge blow to his reputation. He is an honourable man and will feel this very keenly. He will have a conviction and I see no reason to persecute him further.
Absolutely he should be stripped of his knighthood. 'Sir' and 'convicted criminal' is oxymoronic.
Knighthood or not , this is an example of another fundamentally honest individual getting in over his head. Bruce Davidson at Bridgecorp and Greg Muir at Hanover are other examples. Instead of wringing hands over knighthoods the focus needs to be on getting money back for the innocent investors.
Doug Graham's situation is very diffrent from the only NZ precedent - which involved electoral fraud in the Cook Islands. He isn't the first, and won't be the last, knight convicted and in his case the conviction is world's away from the reason for the award.
surely he will appeal
Good, let him waste his money!
Doug Graham is a decent man.He is not a crook.He relied on expert financial advise and gained nothing personally.He had the misfortune of ending up before a lightweight non commercial judge.Who would want to be a company director?They get paid a pittance and end up a criminal.Absolutely bizzare stuff.And its all post facto analysis,prejudice,and scape goat seeking.He did his best,most of you losers who condemn him have achieved nothing yourselves.At least he has done a lot for NZ.Leave the man alone.
Doug Graham is a decent man.He is not a crook.He relied on expert financial advise and gained nothing personally.He had the misfortune of ending up before a lightweight non commercial judge.Who would want to be a company director?They get paid a pittance and end up a criminal.Absolutely bizzare stuff.And its all post facto analysis,prejudice,and scape goat seeking.He did his best,most of you losers who condemn him have achieved nothing yourselves.At least he has done a lot for NZ.Leave the man alone.
Doug Graham is a decent man.He is not a crook.He relied on expert financial advise and gained nothing personally.He had the misfortune of ending up before a lightweight non commercial judge.Who would want to be a company director?They get paid a pittance and end up a criminal.Absolutely bizzare stuff.And its all post facto analysis,prejudice,and scape goat seeking.He did his best,most of you losers who condemn him have achieved nothing yourselves.At least he has done a lot for NZ.Leave the man alone.
Have you stopped to think about the good hard working investors who have lost a hugh amount of money, why? pure greed.........
What's Doug lost apart from a little pride-not much apart from a director's fee, they still drive around in their Merc's and have their upper class hobbies.
Is that you DOUG?
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