Serious questions are being raised about the way that CEDIA (Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association) – which is an international trade association representing the professional home automation/smart home technology industry – goes about managing the ethics and track records of members who they are handing out awards to.
The organisation that brags that their “high standards of ethical behaviour, are fundamental to everything they do” appear to have not checked out the ethical behaviour of two Queensland CEDIA members, who they recently showered with awards and expenses paid trips to the USA to collect their awards despite their shocking reputation and questionable business practises in the CI industry.
While the Australian Government has moved to take action with building union the CFMEU for engaging with questionable characters, CEDIA appears to be okay flying the likes of Regan Webb (seen below) and Matt Manalis – executives at Captivant Pty Ltd – to the USA at the same time that the Australian Tax Office was briefing Sydney based lawyers wind another one of their custom install companies because of a $500,000 tax debt.
Ironically Manalis was one of the CEDIA Judges of the 2024 Awards.
The pair who have a shocking track record of going broke on multiple occasions, and whose past business practises have been questioned by liquidators and administrators when winding up business run by the pair, were last month being wined and dined in the USA with Webb presented with a CEDIA Design & Build Award while Manalis who is the global Chair of the CEDIA Certification Commission was also given a gong as CEDIA Volunteer Of The Year.
CEDIA management claim that they were unaware of Webb and Mamalis’s past or the fact that their business practises have been questioned, on several occasions by Company liquidators during the past five years as they moved to wind up multiple businesses, which had run up millions in debts.
Yesterday we revealed that the Australian Tax Office has commenced proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia to wind up their latest business Captivant Pty Ltd over a $500,000 tax debt.
The move to wind up Captivant Pty Ltd comes two years after their last Company was wound up with tax debts of over $1.4M.
Three of the four shareholders of Captivant as of June of this year were Matt Manalis, the Chairman of CEDIA’s Certification Commission, Regan Webb and Brendan Cousemacker, all three of whom operate Brisbane based custom install Company ExperienceONE. Mr Webb is the sole director of Captivant.
Manalis and Cousemacker were directors and shareholders, and Webb a shareholder, of the company BMR Group. That company was placed into voluntary liquidation in 2022 owing $1,653,864 to creditors with $1,403,592 of that debt owed to the ATO.
In addition, Manalis, Cousemacker and Webb were all directors (Webb only for a matter of months) and shareholders of the company Digital Residence Pty Ltd. That company was wound up by the ATO in 2018 over a tax debt, with over $800,000 owed to creditors at the time of liquidation.
Inklings that Captivant was in trouble was first revealed to ChannelNews when we obtained a CreditWatch report back in March 2024 that revealed that the Trustees for Captivant Unit Trust already owed the ATO over $400,000.
Last month, Manalis withdrew action against 4Square Media, the publisher of ChannelNews, in the Queensland Supreme Court over a previous ChannelNews story titled ‘CEDIA Award ExperienceONE Executive With ‘Top Award’ Despite Dodgy History in Industry”.
Lawyers acting for Manalis claimed the story damaged his reputation.
The night before the case was due in Court the matter was discontinued by Manalis, who has since paid 4Square’s costs.
The liquidator of BMR Group raised several issues with the activities of that company.
According to a liquidator’s report, BMR Group ceased trading one day prior to the incorporation of Captivant. That liquidator went on to raise questions in his report about the overnight transfer of assets, money and custom install contracts from BMR Group to Captivant.
Those transactions, according to the Report, were made for no consideration and therefore were, according to the liquidator, voidable transactions.
The directors of BMR Group claimed at the time that the business was affected by the Brisbane flood. The liquidator’s view in his report was that there may be other factors that caused the business to fail, including that the business “had no way of repaying” its ATO debt of more than $1.4 million.
The liquidator also considered that a disaster grant in the amount of $35,000 to BMR Group was applied for the benefit of the directors (Manalis and Cousemacker), rather than the company, and therefore constituted a misapplication of funds.
One Queensland based CEDIA said he was disgusted with CEDIA’s actions. “If Webb and Manalis are getting CEDIA Awards it raises questions as to how CEDIA is run”.
“These guys are that last two you would to be associated with” he said.
CEDIA management have requested that we send information on the pair to their ‘Ethics’ committee.
