Sergio DeMali and Piotr Clements, two members of RCS.
Camera IconSergio DeMali and Piotr Clements, two members of RCS.

Turquoise Developments used Regal Corporate Solutions to threaten, intimidate clients

Tony BarrassPerthNow

THEY called themselves Regal Corporate Solutions and, according to their rather menacing business card, dealt in “corporate dispute resolution, debt reconciliation, mediation and management”.

They did their best work at the behest of wannabe high-flyer Talbot Le Page, demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars from suburban mums and dads who had engaged Turquoise Developments to build their dream home.

Moreover, they did little by the book.

Talbot Le Page
Camera IconTalbot Le Page Credit: Instagram

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In fact, RCS was not even a legal business entity or registered debt collection agency; in reality, RCS was a bunch of low-level thugs and standover goons who went by tough-guy names like “Black Mamba”.

Documents put before the State Administrative Tribunal and obtained by The Sunday Times have for the first time lifted the lid on a now-defunct extortion racket within WA’s residential construction industry.

The documents paint an appalling picture of how Mr Le Page’s Turquoise Developments used RCS to threaten at least five complaining clients and their families in what the tribunal described as a “deplorable and criminal way”. In one case, according to a sworn statement taken by Building Commission investigators, one hood threatened to “put a bullet in your head” of a Turquoise client if they did not pay $300,000 to Le Page in unpaid invoices — none of which were valid.

In another incident, the men refused to leave a building site — even when the police turned up — and scared off all tradies working on the house, threatening violence if they returned.

And in another, a car driven by one of the victims was forced off Karrinyup Road after a black Range Rover driven by one of the men deliberately swerved in front of it.

Turquoise Developments went under last year owing more than $6.5 million to unsecured creditors, while Mr Le Page has also since declared himself bankrupt.

But not before some of Mr Le Page’s clients had to take out violence restraining orders to get the standover men off their properties and out of their lives.

According to court papers, the whole sorry mess started on June 3, 2016, when Mr Le Page engaged RCS to sort out issues his struggling home-building business was having with at least five Perth families upset at the standard of work for which they were paying big bucks.

Turquoise pitched itself at the top end of the residential building market and had its eyes on eventually moving into the commercial sector, where the serious money was.

According to documents before SAT, RCS was made up of Sergio DeMali, Piotr Clements, Steven Juganaikloo and two other men — one a senior member of Perth’s Italian community — who can’t be named for legal reasons.

The tribunal noted that Mr DeMali and Mr Clements were heavy-set men who wore black suits to every meeting they had with Turquoise’s disgruntled clientele. And there seemed to be a growing number of complaining customers.

With every Turquoise build came a range of issues regarding shoddy workmanship, strange and nonsensical invoices, non-appearing materials, and various, compounding problems that always seemed to be the client’s — and not the builder’s — fault.

But when the clients complained, the standover men arrived and put into place RCS’s “mediation and management” practices.

Screaming matches, intimidating behaviour such as driving up and down streets and run-of-the-mill standover tactics were deployed at every opportunity.

One client claimed the men also threatened his pregnant wife.

The tribunal agreed, accepting that the RCS men “threatened and intimidated five clients ... on numerous occasions,” the documents state.

“None of the RCS men were licensed debt collectors, and nor could they be, as RCS was not a recognised legal entity.”

The tribunal found Mr Le Page “was a person who used violence and threatened violence” and that he knew “that the RCS men would behave in this fashion and ... intended for them to behave in this fashion ...”

“The RCS men engaged in criminal conduct and ... gave the clients reasonable grounds to consider they would suffer personal violence.”

It also found that when Mr Le Page had been made aware of the way his hired help were behaving, he “continued with directing the RCS men to behave in that deplorable and criminal way, rather than direct a change of behaviour or terminate the engagement of the RCS men”.

It found that Mr Le Page engaged in conduct that was “harsh, unconscionable and oppressive ... over many months and showed his conduct to be deliberate and calculated ... and that he knowingly directed that such criminal acts take place”.

Believing that “he would be a risk to the public of further misconduct in the event that he again sought registration (as a builder)”, the tribunal banned Mr Le Page from holding a builder’s licence for the maximum period of three years.

And in a rare move, the tribunal handed down a $40,000 fine — $15,000 above the normal maximum fine — as a “specific and general deterrence” due to Mr Le Page’s conduct being “deliberate and sustained”. It also ordered costs against Mr Le Page.

The tribunal noted that Mr Le Page and the RCS men “have not participated in these proceedings in any way and have not provided any evidence or submissions in response to the allegations ... against them”.

The Building Services Board, which oversees building practices within WA, pursued the case on behalf of at least six WA families who had engaged Turquoise Developments to build their homes.

The tribunal acknowledged the dedication of the board in “the enormous amount of work which has been carried out in readying this matter for determination”.