An appeal has been granted after prosecutors challenged two of eight not-guilty verdicts the New Zealand High Court last year delivered for CBL Insurance executives.

The deputy solicitor-general, on behalf of the Serious Fraud Office as prosecutor, sought leave to appeal against the verdicts in the decision acquitting former CEO Peter Harris and CFO Carden Mulholland.  

“The Court of Appeal has ruled the appeal will proceed on two questions of law underpinning the acquittals on charges one and eight,” the fraud office said. 

The Crown did not seek leave to appeal the remaining six acquittals.    

Charge one against Mr Harris alleges a $NZ42,136,416 ($38,907,671) payment to Alpha Insurance was a breach of a direction issued by the regulator, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, under the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010.   

Charge eight against Mr Harris and Mr Mulholland alleges they omitted to disclose the true nature of a deposit of €12,500,000 ($20,453,125) placed by CBL with the National Bank of Samoa.    

CBL had a market valuation of just under $NZ750 million ($693 million) when it collapsed in 2018, in one of New Zealand’s largest corporate failures.  

The Serious Fraud Office in June that year said it was investigating and charges were filed in December 2019. 

Mr Harris and Mr Mulholland were found not guilty in September last year on charges of theft, false accounting and obtaining by deception.