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Last October, Graham Tuckwell found himself flying more than 10,000 miles out of locked-down Melbourne into soon to be re-locked-down London, the star witness for a trial in the Royal Court on the tiny island of Jersey in the English Channel.
It was the largest commercial case that Jersey had ever seen, and the local Hotel Cristina was transformed into a courtroom for four weeks to accommodate the 30-plus lawyers, barristers and 14 witnesses. The matter on trial: Tuckwell’s own intransigence.
A trio of US private equity firms that owned one-third of his exchange-traded funds business, ETF Securities – which at its peak held $US37 billion ($49 billion) in assets and had made Tuckwell very rich – had sued, arguing Tuckwell was treating the company like his own private fiefdom. At one particularly argumentative board meeting, Tuckwell became so irate at the questions being asked by directors he didn’t like that he simply put them on mute.