Loiterton has been involved with Farmgate at Statford Park, Wildes Meadow - a large lavender farm. Statford Park is a family company.

Loiterton, 64, the former chairman of Clifford Corp, was found to be both dishonest and negligent while in charge of the company. He was banned from managing a corporation for 17 years in the NSW Supreme Court on September 30 and fined $400,000 for breaching directors' duties following the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's (ASIC) civil penalty proceedings against former directors of Clifford.

The penalties followed formal declarations by the Court on April 1 that each of the directors of Clifford - Loiterton, Ian Hall and Ian Sapier - and director of a Clifford subsidiary, Signature Group Australia Ltd, Peter James Loiterton, Barrie Loiterton's son, had contravened various provisions of the Corporations Act.

At the time the Court found that Barrie Loiterton had committed 29 breaches of the Corporation Act, including 13 acts of dishonesty.

Clifford Corporation was the largest bus and coach maker in Australia and its collapse in 1998 left creditors and shareholders with a deficiency of over $90 million.

An investigation by ASIC found that the directors of the Clifford Group and its subsidiaries entered into various fictional and non-commercial transactions, which inflated the group's reported profit for the 1996-97 financial year.

Last month Hall was banned from managing a corporation for 12 years and ordered to pay a $285,000 fine. Sapier, an accountant, has been banned from managing a corporation other than his accounting practice for eight years, fined $120,000, ordered to pay $120,000 compensation to Clifford - now in liquidation - and 30 per cent of ASIC's costs.