The Serious Fraud Office trial of three men associated with the collapsed firm Dominion Finance is due to begin in Auckland this morning.
Dominion Finance Group (DFG) and North South Finance (NSF) were operating subsidiaries of the NZX-listed Dominion Finance Holdings (DFH). Both offered property and commercial loans.
DFG went into receivership in September 2008, and NSF went into receivership in July 2010.
DFH entered voluntary administration in October 2008 and was placed in liquidation in February 2009. It is estimated the group owes creditors $400 million.
In a case brought by the SFO, former Dominion Finance director Robert Barry Whale and former chief executive Paul William Cropp and an accused with name suppression face charges of theft by a person in a special relationship.
The trio's judge-alone trial, in the High Court at Auckland, is expected to last around four weeks.
Former Dominion director Terence Butler was facing court action with the other defendants, but was excused in late November because he has cancer.
