Article extracted from The Age, David Estcourt and Kishor Napier-Raman 26 August 2022
If you’re allegedly corrupt developer John Woodman, you’re used to the best.
The Ferrari-driving property mogul is known for his extraordinary financial arrangements, suitcases filled with hundreds of thousands in cash and doling out more than $1.2 million in allegedly corrupt payments to councillors.
Woodman is awaiting the results of litigation which is holding up the publication of a report detailing his allegedly corrupt activities based on an investigation, dubbed Operation Sandon, and written by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC).
Representing Woodman is new law firm Duxton Hill, headed up by litigator Andrew Tragardh, who had brought on board some familiar faces. Even some that worked on Operation Sandon.
They include former chief commissioner of Victoria Police Graham Ashton as special adviser, and two former senior members of IBAC: Tam McLaughlin, the former principal solicitor, and Simon Heath, the former deputy commissioner.
Interestingly, both McLaughlin and Heath previously worked on Sandon “but they have had nothing to do with my acting for John Woodman”, Tragardh told CBD . “We have a very strict Chinese Wall in place.”
Sandon was the most significant probe into alleged planning-related corruption in Victoria in decades with its examination of land deals in Melbourne’s rapidly growing south-east.
Woodman previously claimed that IBAC had denied him procedural fairness and breached its statutory obligations by not providing him with a reasonable opportunity to respond to the draft report, which mentions him 1450 times among hundreds of pages.
Duxton Hill have their work cut out for them.
Just last week letters between Woodman and Premier Daniel Andrews were made public after the premier said he did not believe any such documents existed.
The upper house in May ordered all correspondence between the pair to be tabled in the Victorian parliament following revelations Andrews had been quizzed by IBAC about his relationship with Woodman.
Allegedly corrupt developers aren’t their only practice. Duxton Hill have also had some big wins for victims of financial fraud, with senior investigators Shane Ringin and Rohan Pike also being on the payroll.
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