The Bill Express group was owed more than thirty million dollars in 2008 by Australia's largest satellite broadband provider APN, trading as Activ8Me, the Supreme Court of Victoria heard yesterday.The liquidator of Bill Express, PPB, has been trying to ascertain the extent of involvement between APN and Bill Express. The liquidator is undertaking a public examination of key people associated with the company. Bill Express owes creditors almost $250 million.Counsel for PPB, Peter Bick, has told the court on a number of occasions that APN was an integral part of the Bill Express group of companies and its complex debt and funding arrangements. Yesterday Bick said APN owed more than $32 million to Bill Express and another company associated with Bill Express.Sandro Di Donato, the 95 per cent owner of APN, has denied a close level of involvement between APN and Bill Express, despite the court hearing that the companies shared an office, staff and a debt financing facility.Bill Express was desperate to purchase APN in 2008, largely in return for the write off of $19 million in debt owed by APN to Bill Express companies, and almost did so over the opposition of Sandro Di Donato, the court heard yesterday.Sandro Di Donato "owed his business" to Bill Express, according to the former chief executive of Bill Express, Ian Christiansen, who confirmed that he 'pushed hard' to buy APN from Di Donato but denied bullying him into agreeing to the sale."I was pushing him to accept the transaction but bullied is not a word I would use; I was saying to him you owe a lot of debt," Christiansen told the court. He also confirmed that the deal ruined the longstanding friendship and business relationship he had with Di Donato.Christiansen announced to the stock market that a deal had been done to buy APN on 29 February 2008, subject to due diligence.The sale was never completed and Bill Express entered administration on 8 July and then liquidation soon after. Christiansen said the purchase of APN had been 'ratified' by PricewaterhouseCoopers who were engaged by major Bill Express creditor ANZ bank to conduct due diligence on the deal.The purchase of APN was part of a plan by Christiansen to merge all four major companies of the Bill Express group - Bill Express, OnQ, TBS Pty Ltd, and APN Pty Ltd, into one entity.