Cash will be paid out to 282 investors in failed training company Intueri in the next few weeks, after the High Court approved the distribution of a settlement with the company’s directors and promoters. In a decision issued on Monday, Justice Dani Gardiner said the terms of the settlement were confidential but the method chosen to share out the money was fair to investors.

One of the lead plaintiffs, Marcus Tetro, said it was an “astonishingly good” outcome.

As a member of the claimants’ representative committee alongside Mark Gatward, Newton Pontes, and Frances Fullarton, Tetro said: “On behalf of the Intueri Education Group plaintiffs, we would like to express our thanks to the legal team behind this wonderful outcome and recovery.

“There has never been any doubt in the minds of the plaintiffs that there was a case to be answered, but there are a lot of moving parts, and credit fairly vests with the skill and dedication of (in particular) Fionnghuala Cuncannon, Zane Kennedy KC, and Mike Ring KC.

“In addition, we would also like to acknowledge the unwavering support of the funders, LPF, for their pivotal role in achieving this great result, and [LPF executive] Jonathan Woodhams for his accurate and pragmatic interface.”

Cuncannon said the outcome showed the value of class actions. “Regulators can’t take all cases and claims like this give claimants another pathway to seek redress,” she said.

“I thought it was a really good case and from a legal perspective it would have been a fascinating trial. But settlement now was the best outcome for claimants and it’s great to be able to deliver that.”

Defendants in the class action claim were IPO promoter Arowana International and Intueri directors including Kevin Chin, Rob Facer, Chris Kelly, James Turner, and Glen Dobbie.

Claim allegations

Describing the claim, Justice Gardiner said the investors alleged Intueri’s IPO documents were misleading because they did not explain that a significant proportion of reported enrolment numbers included students who had withdrawn early in the course; or that the reported high rates of course completion excluded these early withdrawals.

“Furthermore, that around 50% of [Intueri subsidiary] Quantum’s revenue and 100% of its profit was attributable to a ‘loophole’, which meant it could retain the fees paid by these early withdrawal students without providing them with any education services or including their numbers in official reports to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC).”

Had the market known the truth, the investors alleged, the IPO would not have happened.

After filing the class action in April 2020, the investors reached a settlement in September last year.

According to the judgment, litigation funder LPF Group, which backed the legal action, receives a fee of 25% of the resolution sum after recovering project costs.

The balance of the settlement sum will be paid to investors on a pro rata basis. Their recovery is understood to be between 30% and 50% of losses.

The judgment noted 27 claimants had not yet responded to the claims administrator and the court allowed 20 working days for those details to be lodged.

Investigation

The allegations of misleading prospectus documents followed revelations published in an NBR investigation in November 2015 showing Intueri had been generating substantial income from thousands of failing students, despite reporting success rates of more than 90%.

Although a Financial Markets Authority review concluded only that the prospectus documents could have been clearer, a crackdown by the Tertiary Education Commission led to Quantum’s closure.

The promoter of the Intueri float, Arowana International, renamed AWN Holdings, delisted its shares from the ASX in November 2021.

In a statement on its website last September, AWN said the Intueri class action had been settled on confidential terms “without recourse to AWN shareholders or the broader Arowana group and its executives”.

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NBR, Tim Hunter, 18 February 2025