Roxy Jacenko continues to feud with her former partners after a $10 million house giveaway went wrong.
Jacenko has partnered with entrepreneurs Youssef Tleis and Kassim Alaouie on their online business course Brand Bootcamp and the trio have launched a promotion offering new customers the chance to win three epic prizes.
The prizes included a $10 million beachfront home in Cronulla (owned by Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie), a Birkin bag and a Rolex watch, and the promotion was due to be drawn last month before being suspended.
The 44-year-old PR mogul has now filed forms with ASIC, detailing how much the company owes to creditors, the The Telegraph newspaperIt was reported on Saturday.
Tleis and Alaouie have also filed applications with ASIC and their claims for what they are owed differ, the publication says.
Roxy has presented herself as the company’s sole creditor and says she is owed around $295,000.
Meanwhile, his former partners listed a debt of $107,000 to Yazbeck Law, an unspecified amount to the Australian Taxation Office, $5,000 in accounting fees and $10,000 to Tleis.
The men also dispute an alleged $210,000 payment made to Jacenko as an “unfair” or “voidable” transaction.
Roxy Jacenko (pictured) continues to feud with her exes after a $10 million house raffle went wrong
A Hermes Birkin bag and a Rolex watch that were part of the original gift are named as “company-owned assets” by Tleis and Alaouie, while Jacenko reportedly plans to keep the expensive items.
Roxy is said to have paid out $76,000 in refunds to disgruntled participants of its highly controversial and failed $10 million home lottery.
Jacenko took to social media at the time to claim he was leaving after discovering a “shortfall” in the prize pool and insisted he would offer refunds to customers out of his own pocket.
“I stand by my offer to reimburse clients and as a result of this, $684,000 of my personal funds remain in my lawyer’s trust account,” he told Daily Mail Australia at the time.
Jacenko has issued $76,019 in refunds to participants in the aborted drawing, just over 10 percent of the money he claimed to have set aside for refunds. The Daily Telegraph reported.
She partnered with entrepreneurs Youssef Tleis (right) and Kassim Alaouie (left) on their Brand Bootcamp business course and launched a promotion offering new customers the chance to win three epic prizes.
A total of 7,489 people had paid between $29 and $499 to enroll in the boot camp, but it has been estimated that around 90 percent of participants remain unpaid after refunds.
Only participants who submitted a refund request within a seven-day period from June 9 to June 15 were eligible to receive a refund from Jacenko.
After Jacenko was criticized for the short refund period, she responded to the criticism on social media, stating that she was not even obliged to offer it.
“I’m now processing the refunds from my personal bank account. As you know, I partnered with two other people and it was a complete failure,” he began.
“If you’re an honorable person, you put your hand in your pocket and give people their money back, which is what I’m doing starting this week. Refunds are still open as of today.”
“One thing about the refund window: you don’t go to Woolworths and buy Nutri-Grain and then in three months suggest they take it back and exchange it or give you a full refund,” he added.
Prizes included a $10 million Cronulla beachfront home (pictured), owned by Tleis and Alaouie, a Birkin bag and a Rolex watch, and the promotion was due to be drawn last month before it was halted.
“It’s not an unusual offer to offer a seven-day refund, nor is it something I’ve had to do. I chose to reimburse those who requested it out of my own pocket.”
It has been claimed that Jacenko is pushing for liquidators to refund the $76,000 in refunds, after Roxy Bootcamp was ordered to close last week.
Jacenko’s lawyers have also reportedly informed her former business partners that she plans to keep the Birkin bag and Rolex watch she purchased as part of her investment in the raffle.
Following the company’s failure, the New South Wales Supreme Court appointed liquidators of the company, from which Jacenko resigned as a director last month.
Jacenko originally requested the appointment of provisional liquidators due to, among other reasons, allegations that Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie had engaged in “misleading conduct” during the promotion, due to a sub-clause stating that prizes would only be awarded if the competition raised more than $11.5 million in revenue.
But the conditions were never made public by Jacenko during a whirlwind of publicity and the clause was also missing from the formal terms and conditions of the competition on Roxy’s Bootcamp website.
The 44-year-old public relations mogul has filed forms with ASIC detailing how much the company owes to creditors, the Daily Telegraph reported on Saturday. Tleis and Alaouie have also filed paperwork with ASIC, and their claims on what they are owed differ, the publication said.
In another update to the highly publicised saga, Supreme Court Justice Anthony McGrath last week reportedly rejected Jacenko’s request to be awarded her legal costs.
“I do not consider it was unreasonable conduct on the part of Mr Tleis to oppose the application for a provisional liquidator on the basis that the reputation of the company and of Tleis Investments might be harmed,” Judge McGrath said.
‘Nothing Mr Tleis did in opposing the appointment of provisional liquidators and subsequently consenting to them justifies a conclusion that his conduct was unreasonable.’
Mr. Tleis and Mr. Alaouie previously argued that the promotion should go ahead with a $250,000 cash prize, a Birkin bag and a Rolex watch, after failing to meet the $11.5 million minimum for the house draw.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Jacenko’s representatives for comment.
Last month, Jacenko said that pledged to personally refund the money of the 7,489 people who signed up for its much-hyped branded boot camp after the bitter dispute.
“The company’s account did not have enough to pay the grand prize winner, so I personally loaned the company money so that it could pay off important creditors and so that there would be sufficient funds in the company’s accounts to pay the $250,000 prize,” he said at the time.
A Hermes Birkin bag and a Rolex watch that were part of the original gift are named as “company-owned assets” by Tleis and Alaouie, while Jacenko reportedly plans to keep the expensive items.
‘I loaned the company over $100,000 to ensure that it had sufficient funds available for the business.’
“I was unable to issue refunds from Shopify as Mr Tleis is the only one with access to the NAB account containing the funds; he revoked my access to the company bank account,” she added.
While Jacenko expressed regret for having entered into the business venture, Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie also issued an apology on social media at the time of the failed draw.
“Our main concern has always been you, the public, especially those who participated and purchased a ticket to this promotion,” they said.
‘We sincerely apologize to all of you. We fought with all our strength and were even willing to make personal commitments to support our struggle.
“We would like to express our deepest regret for having entered into this collaboration with Ms. Jacenko. It has been an incredibly challenging and eye-opening experience. We sincerely apologize.”
In appointing provisional liquidator Cathro & Partners to the firm last month, Mr Justice McGrath described the promotion scheme as “highly questionable”.
“The competing interlocutory applications arise in the extraordinary circumstances of the rapid creation and almost equally rapid deterioration of the relationships between Ms Jacenko, Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie in relation to a commercial venture involving the promotion of training courses offered by Ms Jacenko to the public using a highly questionable promotional scheme,” it said.
‘By any measure, the promotion has attracted significant adverse publicity… this has given rise to online comments which have been extremely disparaging about the promotion itself and those involved in it.’
