Former HIH director Charles Abbott shouldn’t be tried for his last-minute scramble to get payments from the company in the hours before it collapsed, a committal hearing in Sydney has been told. Mr Abbott is facing a criminal charge of improperly using his position to obtain funds from HIH.

The major charge against Mr Abbott surrounds his allegedly frantic invoicing for immediate payment for salary and expenses of $181,000 from HIH after he was already aware of a report recommending that the company go into liquidation.

However, his counsel argues he should not be committed to stand trial because he was entitled to the payment he received from HIH the day before the group’s collapse.

But prosecutor Desmond Fagan says while Mr Abbott may have been entitled to payment, using his position as a director to engineer a payment to himself  “at a point when it appeared to him highly likely, if not inevitable, that the company would go into some form of administration”, was unlawful.