Apple crys foul as Buzzle liquidator turns up the heat

In a stinging attack on liquidator Andrew Wiley, Apple is asking the Supreme Court of NSW to dismiss him from the position on the grounds that he is actually working in favour of the two former Buzzle directors, Donald Hartono and Wing Ne Liu, who appointed him in December 2001. The move comes after Wiley indicated he wanted to examine Apple executives on the suggestion that the company had contributed to Buzzle’s $30 million collapse.

According to a report in the Financial Review Apple is alleged to have pressured dealers who were in trouble to join together in the Buzzle company in the hope of recovering an existing $20 million in debt. It is also alleged that it subsequently stuffed millions of dollars worth of surplus equipment, much of it defective, into the business that was formed from the amalgamation of six Apple resellers owning a total of 30 stores.

Buzzle, was formed during the final stages of the dot com boom in 2000 with the intention of becoming a public company. It collapsed spectacularly after less than six months in operation owing Apple $19 million. The ABC produced a documentary on the high profile rise and fall of Buzzle that was shown on television.

Apple is pursuing an action against the two Buzzle directors and claims that the allegations by Wiley also form the basis of their defence – no mere coincidence. The liquidator denies the charge and maintains there was no way Buzzle could have traded out of its difficulties, because the individual resellers who joined were not in a sufficiently healthy financial position.