In a court document filed in the NSW Supreme Court, WIN and Birketu claim high profile law firm Atanaskovic Hartnell should have appointed a partner to supervise all work of Mr Clarke and ensured all correspondence from him was copied in to the supervising partner.

They also claim a supervising partner should have conducted a regular review of all work done by Mr Clarke and all correspondence sent and received by Mr Clarke.

Mr Atanaskovic and Mr Hartnell are yet to file a defence.

It says they are both liable because of the firm's "negligence in failing ... to properly supervise its employed solicitor" and the firm is "vicariously liable for the fraudulent actions of their employed solicitor".

Worked on personal matters

In February Mr Clarke was charged with stealing $10 million from WIN and Birketu while he was working as a solicitor for Atanaskovic Hartnell.

He is also facing a separate civil case over the allegedly stolen money.

It is alleged he invoiced over $1 million to Birketu and WIN in disbursements, some of which were fabricated, and fraudulently arranged a $8 million swap loan facility with Deutsche Bank, with the all funds transferred to his personal bank account instead of AH's trust account.


Mr Clarke started working for AH Lawyers in December 2013 and worked in various matters for Mr Gordon, including in Birketu and Illyria's proposed acquisition of Network Ten.

Mr Clarke also worked on Mr Gordon's personal matters, including the purchase of an apartment in Circular Quay. The apartment was reportedly sold for $9 million.

Mr Atanaskovic introduced Mr Clarke to WIN's chief executive Andrew Lancaster around October 2016, the court document says.

HWL now running the case

Both Birketu and WIN were long standing clients of AH, the court document says, who believed Mr Clarke was acting on AH's authority and had no reason to suspect these matters were any different to what had previously been the case.

This was because Mr Clarke used AH's email address, email sign off and letterhead in his dealings with Birketu, WIN and Deutsche Bank.

At the time, Mr Clarke was an employed solicitor of AH - meaning he was subject to the supervision conditions imposed on his practising certificate and required supervision in his day-to-day practice by the firm.

When AH found out about the alleged fraud, it filed a police report and started a civil case in the Supreme Court to freeze Clarke's Westpac bank account and his betting accounts.

The same civil case is now run by law firm HWL Ebsworth and names AH's founding partners Mr Atanaskovic and Mr Hartnell as the ninth and tenth defendants.