Top Group law school freezing enrolments calls into question NSW public sector annual reports, and the work of NSW Audit

by Ganesh Sahathevan

As reported Zhu Minshen's Top Group IPO and listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange relied heavily on approvals obtained from the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board. The NSW LPAB then refused to answer a number of queries with regards the approvals granted Zhu Minshen.

Zhu continued to refer to the NSW LPAB and in his announcements to the HKEX. Investors could not be blamed for placing reliance on the pronouncements of the NSW LPAB given its standing in NSW, and in Australia. Its chairman is none other than the Chief Justice Of NSW, Tom Bathurst.

The NSW LPAB's pronouncements with regards Top Education Group are a matter of public record, and are easily accessible over the Net. There is much information about Top Group and its law school that can be gleaned from the NSW LPAB's annual reports, and as this writer has noted, the annual reports are deficient in their disclosures about Top and its law school.

The discovery that Top Education and Zhu Minshen have frozen enrolments in their law school is clearly price sensitive and investors may have been alerted to problems at Top Group had the NSW LPAB provided better disclosures; it did not and investors everywhere, including those who invest in NSW Government securities are entitled to discount information provided in NSW Government documents, including public sector annual reports. The reports are subject to annual audit by the NSW Auditor General, but as reported recently in the matter of iCare, the Auditor General's work is suspect. The matter of Top Group and the NSW LPAB adds to concerns about the NSW Government's annual reports, and the work of the Auditor General.

TO BE READ WITH

Sunday, August 9, 2020

Zhu Minshen Top Group law school froze enrolments in 2019 after NSW LPAB reaccreditation: NSW LPAB & its Chairman , the Chief Justice NSW Tom Bathurst, have provided no explanation

by Ganesh Sahathevan

                          Ambassador Cheng Jingye Pays an Official Visit to the State of New 
                          South Wales   (2016/08/16)

The following statement appears at the bottom of Zhu Minhen's Top Education law school website:


* Law school is currently not accepting any new enrolments for its Bachelor of Laws course

The Acting Dean of the law school,  Katherine Lindsay , has confirmed in writing :

No new law students have been admitted  in 2020.

The decision to freeze enrolments appears to have been made after the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board reaccredited Top's license to issue law degrees on 27 June 2019. 

The NSW LPAB and its Chairman, the Chief Justice NSW Tom Bathurst, have provided no public explanation and have maintained their usual silence. 

Top is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange but the HKEX has not been informed of this freezing of law school enrolments, despite Top relying on its "one and only" and "very unique" law school to sell its IPO.

TO BE READ WITH 

Friday, September 27, 2019

Zhu Minshen announces that NSW LPAB review "went smoothly": AG NSW Mark Speakman and officers unconcerned by Clive Hamilton's disclosures of threats, intimidation and defiance of AFP directives ,share price collapse

by Ganesh Sahathevan

The LPAB''s tick of approval does not seem to have reversed the downward trend in share price.Indeed it does look as if the LPAB has ignored all together the fact that Top's market capitalisation has collapsed since listing. Note that Top's shareprice has fallen 14.29% over the past month,compared to 1.13% for the overall market as measured by the Hang Seng Index

In the words of Zhu Minshen, chairman and CEO of his Top Education Group Ltd:



Bachelor of Law Re-accreditation 

The scheduled re-accreditation process of our Bachelor of Laws (‘‘LLB’’) went smoothly. On 27 June 2019, TOP received formal notification from the Legal Profession Admission Board of New South Wales (‘‘LPAB’’) to accredit TOP’s LLB for a further five-year period commencing from the notification date.
(TOP EDUCATION GROUP LTD
ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANNUAL RESULTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2019)




All this despite the revelations of open defiance of an AFP directive, threats and intimidation disclosed in Clive Hamilton's "Silent Invasion",which have been previously reported on this blog:

In his 2018 book "Silent Invasion" Professor Clive Hamilton reports that Top Education Group's Zhu Minshen organised  students , including students from his Top Education Institute to protest  against Tibetans at the  2008 rally , which counted towards the Top students’ assessment.  Zhu’s Top Institution is “perhaps the only accredited degree program in Australia that counts agitating for a foreign power towards its qualifications.”


Hamilton provides details of Zhu's Communist Party China antecedents and his organisation of the 30,000 strong demonstration by Chinese students at the Canberra torch relay, many of them brandishing Chinese flags.

This was clearly an open challenge to the authority , and in public defiance  of, the AFP's directive to Chinese government security that they were not to be involved in the torch relay. As Hamilton puts is "ASIO shat themselves".

Despite this open defiance of the law that they are meant to defend and uphold the Attorney General NSW Mark Speakman and the other senior judicial officers at the LPAB determined that an exception should  be made to allow Zhu to operate the "first and only" law school in Australia that is not part of a university.

END 

See Also 

Law Council Australia 's exception for Zhu Minshen despite Law Council declaring China's justice system "a joke"

"The fishy smell around Zhu Minshen's Top Education Institute": Clive Hamilton's "Silent Invasion" raises questions for NSW AG Mark Speakman & the LPAB

Posted by Ganesh Sahathevan at 5:37 AM