The trustee in the National Fish & Seafood bankruptcy case is trying to determine whether former NFS President Jack Ventola can help pay some of the supplier’s USD 80.4 million (EUR 72 million) in debts.
John O. Desmond, the Chapter 7 trustee, is asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Boston, Massachusetts, for permission to conduct an examination of Ventola’s financial status.
“As part of the trustee’s administration of the debtor’s estate, the trustee and his counsel are investigating causes of action belonging to the debtor, including potential claims against the debtor’s former directors and officers, fraudulent transfers and insider and non-insider preferences,” Desmond wrote.
Ventola served an investor, president, and member of the board of directors for the Gloucester, Massachusetts-based NFS from around 1979 through 2018.
“In these roles, Ventola was intimately familiar with, among other things: (a) the debtor’s financial condition and transactions; (b) the deliberations, decisions, and conduct of the debtor’s board of directors; (c) Ventola’s own decisions and conduct as an officer, director, and shareholder of the debtor; and (d) the conduct of the debtor’s other officers and shareholders,” Desmond wrote.
Ventola is currently serving a two-year prison sentence for tax fraud at the Federal Medical Center, Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts. He was arrested in 2015 for allegedly failing to pay taxes on more than USD 2 million (EUR 1.8 million) in income earned between 2006 and 2009.
Desmond is asking the court’s permission to interview Ventola on 23 September. He also wants to issue a subpoena requiring Ventola to turn over documents.
Elsewhere in the court filing, NFS’s top unsecured creditors were recently revealed. They include Gorton’s, Crustrade PTD Ltd., PT Bumi Menara Interusa, NSDJ Real Estate, the City of Gloucester, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
NFS' 29 May bankruptcy filing also claims that Pacific Andes International Holdings - the company's former owner - owes NFS more than USD 30 million (EUR 27 million).
