The liquidators for Herbert Insurance Group, the boutique insurer under scrutiny by the Serious Fraud Office, have found the firm may have breached legislation, but is waiting on the white-collar crime investigator before taking any action.

The High Court also bans Bernard Whimp from making any such future offers.

Natural Dairy front woman May Wang has lost her bid to avert bankruptcy at a drawn out hearing at the High Court in Auckland this evening.

She has applied to the Court of Appeal to appeal this week’s judgment of associate judge Hannah Sargisson rejecting her creditors proposal.

But the IRD and Westpac, which were pushing for bankruptcy, said an appeal had little chance of success.

Westpac is owed $620,342 while the IRD is owed a further $1.3 million following the collapse of property development company Dynasty Group.

The Serious Fraud Office says the imprisonment sentence handed down to the former accountant of National Finance 2000 sends a clear message on the seriousness of white-collar crime.

John Gray, 41, a former company accountant at the failed motor vehicle financier, was today sentenced at the Auckland District Court to 18 months in prison.

However, he is appealing the decision not to grant him home detention and remains on bail pending determination of that matter – expected in March.

John Hagen was the Feltex director most likely to have detected errors in the carpet maker’s contentious half-year accounts.

A corporate finance partner at Deloitte for most of his professional life, he was also the founding chairman of New Zealand’s Accounting Standards Review Board, the organisation responsible for implementing international financial reporting standards (IFRS) in New Zealand.