Ponzi perpetrator Barry Kloogh not forced to pay reparations

Barry Kloogh, the failed financial adviser who stole more than $15 million from clients in a Ponzi scheme, will not have to pay reparations, the High Court has ruled.

Kloogh was sentenced in the Dunedin District Court in July 2020, to serve eight years and 10 months jail time, with a minimum non-parole period of five years and four months, but later appealed.

In an appeal court decision released by Justice Rachel Dunningham on December 18, 2020, the reparation order was quashed.

Justice Dunningham’s decision took into account the widespread harm that Kloogh’s con had brought to his victims. Part of her statement read, “It is clear from the material before the court that Mr Kloogh’s fraud has had a profound effect on his victims, the vast majority of whom are elderly and reliant on their investments to support them in retirement.