A company that owned a network of fuel stations across Australia has struck a deal to repay a fraction of its debts arising from environmental contamination at a site earmarked for a local hospital, after its directors were accused of selling off the company's properties in the lead-up to its collapse.
The liquidator of Zoya Investments had claimed its former directors used company funds to purchase multi-million-dollar Sydney homes, while alleging other properties owned by the failed firm were sold to family members and other companies they directed shortly before it went under.
The allegations were part of Federal Court proceedings that were never tested and have since been dismissed after the liquidator accepted a settlement on behalf of the petrol company's creditors.
The ex-directors, Newcastle businessmen Rizwan Rana and Satwinder Singh, have strenuously denied any wrongdoing, saying that assets were sold to pay off the company's debts before it went bust, and that temporary company loans used to purchase residential homes were repaid.
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Zoya Investments, which leased petrol stations across New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia, entered liquidation in April 2024.
Just a month prior, developer Seaforth Securities won a default judgment against the petrol business, with the NSW Supreme Court finding a service station in the Central Coast region of Kanwal was leaking into their property next door. Photo above shows the Kanwal petrol station which leaked onto a neighbouring property and turned it into an "unsaleable" asset.
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