ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO DO DUE DILLIGENCE: Once touted as revolutionary for its ability to compress and send DVD-quality video down a phone line at high speed, Adam Clark's technology is under dispute by the company he sold it to for $16 million.

Media World Communications was billed as "the next Microsoft" [editor's note: "Bwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"] when it formed in 2002 mainly to develop and commercialise Adams Platform Technology (APT), with Mr Adams becoming a director. Since then the 29-year-old - who started his first audio-visual and events management business while still at school - has debuted on BRW Magazine's Young Rich list with a personal fortune said to be $25 million.

But after serious doubts about APT surfaced in September, Media World Communications went into administration.

Analysis by accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers found the compression technology was already available and the encoding performed by APT was actually from commercially available hardware and software disguised to make it appear as APT.

Video coding and compression expert Tim Ferguson found "many" technical flaws in the US patent filed relating to APT, and that APT would not perform as well as a modern compression method.

Mr Clark and his lawyers Baker & McKenzie did not return calls yesterday.