THE company behind Stawell Tyre Yard was effectively sold less than 10 days before the Environment Protection Authority took the unprecedented step of seizing the site.
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Ownership of the land on which the tyres sat had already been transferred to an offshore company just weeks before.
Fairfax Media can reveal that less than two months after the tyre yard was signed over to ‘Internet Marketing Solutions Corp’ in Panama, 100 per cent of shares in the ‘Used Tyre Recycling Company’ (UTRC) changed hands.
UTRC took possession of Stawell Tyre Yard in 2015 after the site’s previous owner, Motorway Tyres, went bust in 2008.
UTRC director Dr Matthew Starr has previously said he wanted to build a pyrolysis plant at the site that would melt shredded tyres in a vacuum chamber to produce fuel and other recyclable material.
In December, Dr Starr published an open letter to the residents of Stawell claiming that Northern Grampians Shire, the Country Fire Authority and EPA Victoria had placed additional costs and conditions on the site that had prevented the plant from being built.
UTRC later entered a dispute with Victorian Environment Minister Lily D'Ambrosio over her refusal to dismiss compliance requirements for the site.
In May, the Country Fire Authority issued a fire notice to UTRC following an “assessment that the stockpile had become a significant fire and community safety risk”.
The EPA moved onto the site on August 9 in order to remove 9500 tonnes of tyres that were deemed to pose an unacceptable pollution risk to the region if the stockpile caught fire.
Three days earlier, Fairfax Media revealed that the land title for the tyre yard had been transferred to ‘Internet Marketing Solutions Corp’, a company registered in Panama.
Panama company records show Internet Marketing Solutions Corp was registered in 2010 as a form of private corporation that protects the identity of shareholders.
The company has no office or registered directors in Australia.
The land title was transferred to Panama on June 8.
According to Australian Securities and Investment Commission documents obtained by Fairfax Media, Dr Starr then transferred 10 shares in UTRC to Georgina Louisa Starr on July 30.
UTRC has only ever been made up of 10 shares worth $1 each.
On the same day, Dr Starr ceased to hold his position of sole director and secretary of UTRC and Ms Starr became the sole director.
Dr Starr did not respond to multiple attempts to reach him by phone, messages left on his mobile and written questions sent by email.
According to ASIC records, Ms Starr’s address is in the coastal village of Iluka in NSW, about half way between Coffs Harbour and Byron Bay.
Ms Starr’s address is identical to that previously registered to Dr Starr’s former business associate, Wen Zhang.
Wen Zhang was the director of ‘International Card Corporation Limited’ and Dr Starr was a secretary.
International Card Corporation Limited was registered in London in August 2011 with £1000 in capital, according to documents obtained from the UK government’s Companies House.
The company was struck off the register in 2013 for repeatedly failing to demonstrate that it was an operating business under UK law.
International Card Corporation Limited’s registered business address was three floors of residential units in the affluent inner-London area of Marylebone.
According to UK credit monitoring firm Endole, more than 1000 other businesses share the same address in the flats located above a coffee shop and a McDonald’s restaurant.
International Card Corporation Limited was registered through a firm called Coddan CPM.
As well as offering the services needed to incorporate a company in the UK, Coddan CPM also offers its clients the ability to take control of ready-made companies in Panama for as little as $1200.
Fairfax Media emailed Dr Starr questions about whether his dealings with Coddan CPM involved the purchase of companies in Panama, but he did not respond.
On October 11, EPA completed removing and transporting the Stawell tyres to a recycling plant in Melbourne.
The total cost was $5 million, which EPA intends to recover from entities associated with the yard.
The day after EPA took control of the tyre yard, the Panama company Internet Marketing Solutions Corp attempted an injunction in Victoria’s Supreme Court to stop the cleanup.
During the hearing, AAP reported that Justice Karin Emerton said the EPA had shown grounds that the UTRC’s Panama land transfer appeared to be “an attempt to get around or avoid its obligations”.
“It’s certainly open to infer that this shifting of assets between two companies, particularly a shelf company, is a device that’s been used to avoid obligations under the fire notice,” Justice Emerton said at the hearing.