Paul Hogan has settled a battle with his former financial advisers over $US34 million in Crocodile Dundee royalties that had been kept in a Swiss bank account.
The actor, now touring Australia in a one-man comedy show, had filed legal action in the US, and later Jersey in the Channel Islands, against his former Swiss-based advisers Strachans amid fears they had misappropriated the money.
Strachans has been at the centre of Australia’s largest tax evasion investigation, Project Wickenby, which led to the jailing of entertainment entrepreneur Glenn Wheatley and a probe into Hogan and his collaborative partner John “Strop’’ Cornell.
In 2012, investigators cleared Hogan and Mr Cornell of any wrongdoing and the pair settled a civil claim with the Australian Taxation Office.
Hogan won a court order in Jersey in 2013 for the handover of records of banks accounts held in the name of an entity called Grasselle SA, linked to the actor and which were then effectively frozen.
Registry files now show that the legal action in Jersey was discontinued last year.
It is understood the money was returned to Hogan after he and accountant Philip Egglishaw — the principal of Strachans — reached an out-of-court settlement.
Hogan, who has declined to comment, has since reached an agreement with the ATO over the returned Crocodile Dundee royalties.
The film, released in 1986, was set in the Australian outback and in New York. Hogan starred as bush legend Mick “Crocodile” Dundee. His real-life future wife Linda Kozlowski played American reporter Sue Charlton in the film, which spawned two sequels. Made on a reported budget of just $10m, it was the second-highest-grossing film in the US in 1986.
Mr Egglishaw, who lives in Geneva is wanted by Australian authorities on 11 charges of fraud, conspiracy to defraud the commonwealth and money laundering.
In 2013, the English-born accountant denied he had swindled the money from his high-profile former client.
“The accusations made … that I or my firm have stolen or inappropriately dealt with client funds are completely false and vehemently denied,’’ he told The Australian at the time.
Last week, the Australian Crime Commission — which led the Project Wickenby probe with the ATO — confirmed it was still pursuing Mr Egglishaw on an arrest warrant first issued in 2008.
Mr Egglishaw is the subject of the only outstanding warrant from the decade-long investigation, which claims to have raised $2.2 billion in tax liabilities and officially winds up today.
Swiss authorities have refused to execute the warrant and the US Internal Revenue Service has joined the fight to have the accountant arrested and extradited back to Australia.
THE AUSTRALIAN JUNE 30, 2015
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