On 29 January 2020 the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced they had charged four people in relation to the claims made by Ross in 2018 around the NZ$100,000 donation. It was said that none of the sitting National Party MPs at the time, including Simon Bridges, were among the four charged. On 19 February 2020, it was reported that Ross was one among four people charged by the SFO over a $105,000 donation made to the National Party in June 2018. The SFO alleged that Ross and the other defendants, three Chinese businessmen, had committed fraud by splitting the 2018 donation into sums of money less than $15,000, which were then transferred into the bank accounts of eight different people before being donated to the National Party. On 25 February, Ross and the other defendants appeared in court where they pleaded not guilty to the charges relating to the National Party donations.
