A Canberra developer used bikies to intimidate former business partners after a dispute over control of an apartment development, a court has found.
ACT developer Shane Anderson paid for men wearing bikie colours to surround the worksite of a Belconnen development owned by two of his former business partners, with whom he had recently had a falling-out over control of the project.
Mr Anderson, who The Canberra Times recently reported created AI-generated news websites advertising his own projects and is developing another Belconnen site, was found to have attempted to improperly pressure his former business partners to reinstate him as a director, revealed in a NSW Supreme Court judgment published on August 7, 2026.
According to the published judgement, in January 2022 Mr Anderson entered into a joint venture with Peter Micalos and Mena Ibrahim to develop 313 apartments as part of The Markets Residences in Belconnen. Mr Anderson held 46.25 per cent of the venture's shares, with an estimated profit share of $27,971,240.
In early 2024, Mr Anderson brought legal proceedings against the other two developers claiming they had transferred his shares in the Belconnen development without his consent, and removed him as a director and secretary of the joint venture.
He then hired a man named "Jay" who he understood would use "strong industry or union ties ... to cause the disruption or threatened disruption" of construction work at the development site, in order to pressure his former business partners to reinstate him on the project.
On January 30, 2025, CCTV footage and several witness statements showed five or six unknown men in face coverings and wearing the colours of the Finks Motorcycle Club attended the worksite about 5.30am.
One of the men told a construction worker they had been sent to the site by Mr Anderson and the developer needed to be reinstated as a partner of the project. He then said the worker should tell the other partners that the site would be shut down if Mr Anderson was not reinstated. The men returned to the site again two hours later, and warned the worker that they would be back.
About 5.30am on January 31, 2025, between 20 and 25 men surrounded the site and prevented all workers from entering. One of the men wearing a face covering told the same construction worker that the site was closed until Mr Anderson was reinstated as a shareholder, and impliedly threatened the worker with violence, saying: "We do this the easy way or the hard way".
"Jay" then told a worker on the phone the same morning that: "There won't be a problem as long as Shane Anderson is reinstated as a shareholder".
Justice Kate Williams found the comment implied that "there was a risk to the welfare of any staff and subcontractors who attempted to enter the site" if Mr Anderson was not reinstated as a shareholder.
"The threat conveyed was plain: reinstate Mr Anderson so that he will share in the profits, or the site will remain closed," she said.
"That threat had a real and definite tendency to interfere with the course of justice ... the pressure was intended to inhibit Mr Ibrahim from defending these proceedings."
Mr Anderson was found guilty of five charges of criminal contempt by Justice Williams in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, August 7. The judge reserved sentencing for a later date.
