More 'adverse' findings against former CIT executive flagged in draft report

A legal barrier to the public release of a report into a former Canberra Institute of Technology executive has fallen, but no timeline has been set for its release.

Last June, an Integrity Commission Special Report found former CIT CEO Leanne Cover “guilty of serious corrupt conduct”.

The report related to her actions regarding CIT contracts worth $8.5 million, which had been awarded to consultant and “complexity and systems thinker” Patrick Hollingworth.

Ms Cover launched legal action against the ACT Integrity Commission to block the release of a second report.

Her lawyers have argued there were jurisdictional and legal errors in the first report and that the standard of proof wasn’t met.

On Thursday (27 March), Supreme Court Justice David Mossop dismissed Ms Cover’s injunction application from earlier this month, meaning the report can be delivered to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.

However, he delayed the handover until 4 pm on Friday (28 March) to give Ms Cover’s lawyers time to appeal his decision if she decided to do so.

The court also heard the Integrity Commission had previously given another person an extension to the deadline for comment on the second report’s findings.

That means the report has not been finalised, with a draft version of the report having been presented to the court.

Justice Mossop also said the second report was expected to focus on the payments made to Mr Hollingworth’s company, with that draft version said to contain “additional findings and conclusions adverse” to Ms Cover.

Ultimately, there is still no date set for its release.

Ms Cover’s lawyers argued the first report had damaged her reputation and the second would damage it further.

On Thursday, Justice Mossop found that while she had experienced reputational harm, that “tends to lessen the significance” of the second report’s findings being released.

He also said that Ms Cover’s case against the first report would not “be destroyed” by its release.

In a separate matter, one of Mr Hollingworth’s companies, Redrouge Nominees, has sued CIT for almost $3.4 million after claiming it broke a $5 million contract between them.

While it had been paid $1.6 million, it argued that CIT was liable for the entire $5 million.

Late last year, the Supreme Court awarded Redrouge Nominees $2.4 million, which meant the company was awarded about $1 million less than it sought.

The Integrity Commission’s report made no findings against Mr Hollingworth.

The matter will return to court on 29 April. Ms Cover has resigned from her position as CEO of CIT.