Insolvency marked another milestone last week when former Ferrier Hodgson partner Gary Trevor completed the torturous winding up of Bell Group NV (BGNV) almost three decades after being appointed liquidator by Australian courts of an administration ancillary to its parent insolvency in the Caribbean jurisdiction of what was then the Netherlands Antilles. In the Supreme Court of West Australia the Perth insolvency veteran obtained orders…
O’Brien Palmer’s Daniel Frisken. McGrathNicol Partner Kathy Sozou. In the matter of Xpress Transport Solutions Pty Ltd (Receivers and Managers Appointed) (Administrator Appointed), Federal Court judge Elizabeth Cheeseman has provided a handy guide for external administrators on how not to proceed with an application for an extension of the convening period. O’Brien Palmer partner Daniel Frisken also deserves special mention. “The approach taken by the…
McGrathNicol partner Keith Crawford. McGrathNicol partner Matthew Caddy. Proceedings in the Federal Court yesterday aptly demonstrated the dangers insolvency practitioners face when accepting appointments as administrators in the middle of intractable shareholder disputes. At a hearing before Federal Court judge Tim McEvoy in Melbourne, counsel for the administrators of Agrifunder Holdings Pty Ltd appeared seeking approval for Agrifunder to enter into a deed of refinance…
O’Brien Palmer’s Liam Bailey. Hall Chadwick’s John Shanahan. When you’re on a bad thing abort is the message that one Sydney trustee didn’t get soon enough to prevent the unnecessary enrichment of lawyers. The trustee, after refusing to accede to the wishes of the majority debt holder by resigning, marshalled his defences when the dominant creditor commenced proceedings to have him removed. As valid as…
Cor Cordis partner Sam Kaso. Cor Cordis Melbourne partner Bruno Secatore. Cor Cordis duo Sam Kaso and Bruno Secatore will be relieved following a decision of the Federal Court delivered this week in Kaso (administrator), in the matter of Sanitation Maintenance Services Pty Ltd (administrators appointed) [2023] FCA 418. The pair were appointed administrators of Sanitation Maintenance Services and three related companies in July 2022….
IRT Advisory’s Andrew Poulter. Following publication of lurid details involving sham arrangements, straw directors and shadowy puppet masters, iNO asked the liquidator responsible for uncovering the imbroglio if he’d reported his findings to ASIC. As it turns out, he had. IRT Advisory’s Andrew Poulter lodged a section 533(1) report with ASIC in January 2018 in respect of what smelled like the liquidation of convenience of…
Hall Chadwick’s Richard Albarran. Hall Chadwick partner Kathleen Vouris. Accepting appointments as administrators can be fraught if it comes after winding up proceedings have commenced. Get the money up front at all costs must be the mantra, but in the following tale iNO can only speculate as to whether Hall Chadwick pair Richard Albarran and Kathleen Vouris were paid what they were promised before they…
Trustee in bankruptcy Schon Condon. Hoons, pig dogs, four wheel drives and firearms. The trappings of your average urban bankruptcy are far removed from this exemplar of the trustee’s eclectic lot, which involves rural properties and an estate unresolved after almost 20 years. In this case trustee in bankruptcy Schon Condon, in whom the property of former bankrupt Evan Alfred Cleaver vests despite Cleaver’s discharge…
Hartwell Funds’ Aaron McDonald. Hartwell Funds’ co-owner John Poynton. Having recently broken the news that liquidator Neil Cussen was departing the Sussex Street Sydney offices of Cor Cordis ahead of a planned foray into litigation funding, iNO this week received a call from West Australian legal entrepreneur Aaron McDonald, eager to let us know that he too was active in the dispute financing arena. “The…
The late Sam Henderson. Insolvency Options principal Darren Vardy. Recently deceased insolvency practitioner Sam Henderson was seemingly in the thick of things to the very end, with a Federal Court judgement detailing meetings the former Jirsch Sutherland partner had with a liquidator in the weeks before he was found dead at a North Sydney hotel on April 4. “I was satisfied that there was good…