"Fraudulent Diversion" Forces Judge To Consider Recusal
PETER GOSNELL 3 DECEMBER 2025
Consider the all too convenient and unlikely coincidence at the heart of this tale and despair. Some five months after finding Sydney man Nahi Gazal to be in contempt of court over almost $5 million withdrawn from bank accounts that were the subject of freezing orders, the ruling judge this week declared that he may have to recuse himself from further hearings after learning that his tax refund had been fraudulently diverted.
In the NSW Supreme Court on Monday, Corporations List judge Ashley Black advised the legal representatives for plaintiff and defendant in Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Westmeat Development Pty Ltd as Trustee for Westmeat Development Trust that he had to consider disqualifying himself after being informed last Thursday by the ATO that there had been a "fraudulent change of his bank account details" in regard to payment of his tax refund.
Describing his refund as a "material amount" Justice Black said he must seriously consider disqualifying himself from continuing to hear the matter given any future decisions he might make would be vulnerable to accusations of bias.
Speaking to an almost deserted court room the judge said the ATO had not provided him with any information about how the
"fraudulent diversion" of his refund was executed, though it is difficult to imagine how anyone other than an ATO employee could covertly alter a taxpayer's bank account details…
