{"id":15866,"date":"2025-12-01T06:20:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T17:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=15866"},"modified":"2025-12-01T06:20:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T17:20:37","slug":"1-5million-payout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=15866","title":{"rendered":"$1.5million payout"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-5 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column post_img_text is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"entry-content post_content wp-block-post-content is-layout-flow wp-block-post-content-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>THE High Court has delivered a judgment against a former executive of one of Fiji\u2019s major supermarket chains, finding he improperly diverted over $1million in company funds for his own use.<\/p>\n<p>Abhishek Abhimannu, the former chief financial officer of Kalabo Investments Ltd, which operates the Shop N Save Supermarket chain, has been ordered to repay approximately $1.53m to his former employer,<\/p>\n<p>In a ruling last week, Justice Deepthi Amaratunga dismissed Abhimannu\u2019s defence that the payments were part of an \u201cunofficial wages\u201d agreement.<\/p>\n<p>The court found him liable for $1,165,452.56 in misappropriated funds, plus $364,132.08 in interest at a rate of 4 per cent per annum.<\/p>\n<p>The case centred on a series of payments totalling over $1m made from Shop N Save\u2019s accounts to Abhi Properties Ltd, a company owned by Abhimannu, for a residential construction project in Laucala Bay, Suva.<\/p>\n<p>The court heard that these payments, made between 2014 and 2016, were signed off by Abhimannu\u2019s brother, Kavishay, who served as the company\u2019s CEO. Both executives are nephews of the company\u2019s managing director and principal shareholder, Ratan Deo.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme unravelled in April 2016 during a \u201ctrigger event\u201d when Mr Deo was alerted to an unusually high overdraft balance.<\/p>\n<p>An internal cash flow statement revealed the substantial payments to Abhimannu\u2019s project. Despite Abhimannu\u2019s claim that this was part of a long-standing verbal agreement for off-the-books salary, the judge found his evidence \u201cinconsistent\u201d and an \u201cafterthought\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The judgment emphasised that Abhimannu, as a qualified CFO, knew that Mr Deo could not unilaterally approve such large payments without proper corporate authority.<\/p>\n<p>The judge said the defendant took advantage of Deo\u2019s over-reliance on the defendant and his brother and concluded that Abhimannu had breached his fiduciary duties.<\/p>\n<p>The court also dismissed Abhimannu\u2019s counterclaim for redundancy pay, finding he and his brother had voluntarily resigned after being confronted with the evidence.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Amaratunga ordered Abhimannu pay the full judgment sum of $1,529,584.64, along with $9000 in legal costs to Kalabo Investments Ltd within 21 days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-block-column print_hide side-section is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-fijitimes-social-sharing\">\n<div class=\"social-icon\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"social-icon \">SOURCE &#8211; THE FIJI TIMES<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE High Court has delivered a judgment against a former executive of one of Fiji\u2019s major supermarket chains, finding he improperly diverted over $1million in company funds for his own use. Abhishek Abhimannu, the former chief financial officer of Kalabo Investments Ltd, which operates the Shop N Save Supermarket chain, has been ordered to repay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiji-news","category-latest-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15868,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15866\/revisions\/15868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}