All Adelaide affair as FEG chases SGC via crypto claim

Thanks to a company director’s well timed crypto buys combined with a cavalier attitude to compliance several of Adelaide’s registered liquidator community have had a decent drink from the FEG Recovery Division’s (FEG) latest exercise in planting a jackboot where the ATO wouldn’t risk a moccasin.

“Having considered all the evidence, I am led to the conclusion, as the liquidator reported to creditors in August 2019, that, since 2015, Ex NF was only able to continue its operations through the non-payment of its tax and superannuation obligations.” Supreme Court of South Australia judge Anne Bampton.

As is shown EX NF Pty Ltd (In Liq) & anor v Munneke & ORS [2025] SASC 165 Anthony Phillips, Andrew Heard and Alan Scott all wet their beards, with Phillips as applicant liquidator funded by FEG, his co-director at Heard, Philips, Lieberenz as author of the expert report Phillips relied on at trial and SV Partners director Scott as the defendants’ expert.

The case involved an application by Phillips in the Supreme Court of Australia for declarations that crypto currency purchased by NF’s director Derek Munneke as far back as 2014 remains property of the company and that Munneke breaches his duties to the company when he sold company crypto to fund, or assist ex-wife Linda Zaccara in funding bricks and mortar acquisitions.

Phillips brought the case with FEG backing, which shows acting head of the FEG Recovery Division Tara Mazzulla isn’t taking the foot off the throttle while her boss Henry Carr prowls DEWR’s corridors on an undisclosed assignment.

That backing means the more than $3.85 million deposited with the court after Munneke sold much his remaining crypto holdings last year can now be accessed to pay creditors, with FEG eying off $900,000 in unpaid superannuation and employee entitlements while the unsecured claims from the ATO comprise $2.23 million in unpaid GST, PAYG and income tax dating from 2014 plus and associated interest and penalties.

Revenue SA is also in there for approximately $250,000 in unpaid payroll tax and the ANZ for $400,000 in respect of a shortfall on the Ex NF’s loan account.

While you might also ask why FEG is funding litigation when the ATO was the creditor with the largest dollar value motivation it’s all about the culture and you’d be hard pressed to identify an operator in the ATO endowed with the sort of buccaneering litigator’s mind set Carr brought to the public service from his days at Hong Kong restructuring shop Borrelli Walsh.