National Gold Corp
Symbol NGT
Shares Issued 30,728,990
Close (2003-01-29) 0.40
National Gold bitten by Wolf
2003-01-29 17:28 PT - Street Wire
by Brent Mudry
The grandly named National Gold Corp., which has almost doubled to 40 cents since December, faces a $295,000 termination suit from former chief financial officer Wolf Bergelt, whose official residence is in the offshore enclave of Antigua in the British West Indies. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) In a statement of claim filed Tuesday in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, chartered accountant Mr. Bergelt and Pachina Inc., his personal services company domiciled in the British Virgin Islands, seeks contractual termination compensation of $286,000 plus expenses.
The allegations in the suit, filed by Vancouver lawyer Richard Hamilton of Hamilton & Co., have not yet been proven in court and a statement of defence has not yet been filed. Mr. Bergelt claims he was terminated on Oct. 21, 2002, which is the same day National announced it was in merger discussions with Alamos Minerals Ltd., its partner on the Salamandra property in Sonora, Mexico.
In the suit, Mr. Bergelt claims he was hired on July 1, 2002, as senior vice-president and CFO, for a fixed term ending March 31, which was later extended to June 30. The one-year contract called for Mr. Bergelt to be paid a salary or retainer of $6,500, or $78,000 annually, with a $286,000 termination payout, which is the equivalent of severance pay of 3.67 years. Mr. Bergelt was also to be retained for five years at $1,000 per year, for "ongoing consulting services," designed to allow him to exercise his options for 300,000 shares.
Mr. Bergelt claims National has refuse to pay his golden parachute, grant his stock options, reimburse him for $484 of expenses and pay his resulting legal fees of $3,435. The suit seeks assorted damages.
Mr. Bergelt, a corporate financial consultant who lived in West Vancouver before moving offshore, has diverse experience. After stints as senior vice-president and CFO of the Belzbergs' First City Trust and finance vice-president of Whistler Olympic booster Jack Poole's defunct Daon Development, Mr. Bergelt ended a three-year stint in 1995 as a vice-president of Ainsworth Lumber and later consulted for Frank Giustra's Lions Gate Entertainment and other companies.
Last June, a month before joining National Gold, Mr. Bergelt ended a four-year tenure as director of controversial offshore gambling promotion Starnet Communications International, renamed World Gaming, which employed his son Tony Bergelt as a programmer. Five months after Mr. Bergelt joined Starnet's board, the company had the misfortune of being raided by 100 police officers on Aug. 20, 1999. No allegations of wrongdoing were made against Mr. Bergelt.
In a landmark North American Internet gambling prosecution, Starnet pled guilty on Aug. 17, 2001, to one criminal gambling count and agreed to forfeit $3.92-million in illicit proceeds and pay a fine of $100,000 (Canadian.) The forfeiture of $3,925,000 is the largest forfeiture in B.C. history, and one of the largest in Canada, under the Criminal Code of Canada, although not as large as some drug-case forfeitures under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
AI
