Senator REYNOLDS: In terms of your professional qualifications, were you aware that Mr Gray, as I understand, may have ended up with a financial interest in the Imperium bid for Melbourne Rebels?
Mr North : No, with my barrister interest I think I'm more careful. I don't mean any disrespect to you, Senator, but the financial interests may have different answers. The only person who was the shareholder, as I understood it, was the company Imperium Sports Management Pty Ltd, controlled by Mr Cox. There was in fact a subtrust. Imperium Sports Management Pty Ltd was the trustee of a trust, and the Imperium Sports Management unitrust was a party to the relevant transactions. I know that people who were individuals or companies associated had interest and took units in the trust. A number of people did that. I was not one of them.
Senator REYNOLDS: You may not have been one of them. So what you're saying is that, while the licence went to Imperium, Imperium has a subsidiary trust which actually had other owners. Do you know why you weren't—
Mr North : No, I think it was a unitrust. They're not owners; they're unit holders. The only owner was Imperium Sports Management Pty Ltd, the shareholding of which should be available to you by an ASIC search and which I understood to be the interest of Mr Cox. The trust structure was not a matter that I ever fully understood.
Senator REYNOLDS: If an ASIC search identified that someone like Mr Gray, for example, had an interest in the unit trust—in effect, a shareholding and a vested interest in Imperium—
Mr North : When are you saying this occurred?
Senator REYNOLDS: Just before or just after. This is what I'm trying to establish.
Mr North : I can't assist you. I don't know the answer to that. You'd have to ask a person who was involved in the trust.
Senator REYNOLDS: As the President of the VRU, would you be concerned if, in terms of these arrangements, about which you have said the VRU was not engaged in terms of the arrangements of the details of the agreement—
Mr North : I understood that there were a lot of interested rugby people who took interest in the relevant trust either through themselves individually or through companies associated with them and that their interests were also able to be dealt with by provision to other parties over a period of time. They did not, though, affect the shareholding, which was passed by Imperium Sports Management Pty Ltd.
Senator REYNOLDS: I do appreciate your very adept legal dancing around this issue.
Mr North : I only want to be precise.
Senator REYNOLDS: My political characterisation of it—
Mr North : Sorry; I missed that point.
Senator REYNOLDS: What I understood of what you said is that you are aware that there was a unit trust or some other financial vehicle where other people with an interest in this could actually invest in Imperium, who had taken over the licence.
Mr North : I don't know whether that's appropriate either. I think the governance of Imperium Sports Management and the unit trust was a matter that I didn't have a great deal of knowledge of, nor did I have an understanding of the way in which that was dealt with.
Senator REYNOLDS: But at some point you did become aware that there was a unit trust in Imperium where—
Mr North : Yes, I was aware there was a unit trust, because the description which was given in the co-terminus transaction documents indicated that the company who was the shareholder—Imperium Sports Management Holdings Pty Ltd or Imperium Sports Management Pty Ltd—acted as a trustee for the Imperium Sports Management unitrust. That was made known to me because of the transaction documents, which were dated 19 June 2015.
Senator REYNOLDS: Okay. That's very interesting. I come back to Mr Gray for a minute. You know that some people do have an interest in that trust. You don't know yet whether Mr Gray had a 10 or 20 per cent interest in that trust. Were you aware that his son also got a job with Imperium after the deal went through?
Mr North : I understood that his son had been employed by Mr Cox for a short period of time, yes, but I don't think it lasted for any long length of time.