A hotel accounts executive who, along with her husband, allegedly misappropriated €597,000 worth of payments from the hotel claims she is owed €1 million under a consulting agreement she had with her employer, the High Court heard.
Last October, the court made freezing orders against Andja (also known as Anda) Gulic Pejovic and her husband Dusan Pejovic, both of Seagrave Drive, Meakstown, Dublin, in relation to monies in four bank accounts to which they are linked.
The order required that the couple must not dissipate their assets, pending further order, below €582,000 which is the amount, it is claimed, that has not been recovered by the hotel, The Address Connolly, Amiens Street, Dublin, formerly the North Star Hotel.
The freezing order application was brought by hotel operators BC McGettigan Ltd against Ms Pejovic who was described as a “trusted employee” for some eight years. Her husband was joined as a defendant because the hotel operator said he was “bound up in this fraud”.
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The case came back before Mr Justice Brian Cregan on Wednesday when the court was told the defendants, who denied the claims, were no longer legally represented as their lawyers, who had not heard from them, had ceased to represent them. They did not appear before the court on Wednesday.
Frank Kennedy, for BC McGettigan, said his client has now received a document entitled “counter motion” in which Ms Pejovic claims she had entered into a “consulting agreement” with her employer where she was to be paid €487 per hour and for which she worked 300 hours per month.
She claims she is entitled to €1 million for the work she did in addition to the money she is alleged to have misappropriated, said counsel.
Brian McGettigan, a director of the operating company, had sworn an affidavit stating these claims she made were “entirely false”, he said.
“It goes to show to a very considerable extent the audacity of the defendants in the way they have defended these proceedings”, said counsel.
They had been ordered by the court to disclose their assets to the plaintiff but in the documents provided there is no reference to the claim of €1 million from a consulting agreement, he said.
Mr Kennedy sought several directions requiring the defendants to deliver certain information in advance of the hearing of the case. He also sought an early hearing date. “The defendants have indicated they may be returning to Croatia,” he said.
The judge gave directions and a timetable for the defendants to provide the information sought and adjourned the case for mention next month.
In the action against the couple, it is alleged that over three years, Ms Pejovic generated 152 payments that were purported to be to certain suppliers or employees. The payments went into two Revolut bank accounts in Lithuania and one in Ireland, as well as Ms Pejovic’s Bank of Ireland account into which her salary was paid.
After it was discovered, while she was on maternity leave, that a particular supplier to the hotel had not been paid when it was believed he had been, a review discovered payments to the Revolut accounts.
It was also discovered she allegedly sent a large number of emails, including copies of the company payroll and procurement database, to her husband. It was also alleged there was a forged tenancy agreement created by Ms Pejovic for a property in Dubai and which Mr Pejovic was named as the landlord.
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