The practice of judge shopping is well understood and acknowledged – though perhaps less than common – but what about the opposite? What about proffering for a judicial officer’s consideration an application formulated in a manner guaranteed to antagonise? This was the question that occurred to iNO after a liquidator brought a claim for remuneration deficient in detail before a judge renowned for looking bleakly…
Brendan Nixon. When a firm has but a single WIP magnet, its continued existence might be deemed precarious when the appointment taker declares he’s done. According to iNO’s sources, that’s what’s happening up in Annastonia where Jarrod Sierocki’s SM Solvency Accountants is contemplating the departure of key man and registered liquidator Brendan Nixon. We hear Brisbane-based Nixon has decided to take a break and with…
KordaMentha’s Jen Nettleton. KordaMentha partner Rahul Goyal. How sweet it is when a liquidation actually delivers. When creditors get 100 cents in every dollar owed and there’s fat sufficient to cover every hour billed, no matter how big a percentage of assets total remuneration comprises. And best of all, a court decrees the fees are proportionate. How rare it is too. But not this week…
Amanda Young. The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) told a court this week that imprisonment was the only appropriate sentence for an ex-liquidator who stole almost $250,000. During sentencing submissions before NSW District Court Judge Kara Shead on Monday, CDPP lawyer Tempe McMinn said all thresholds required for the imposition of a custodial sentence had been crossed by the offender Amanda Young, who in…
Banton Group CEO Amanda Banton. KPMG’s Martin Jones. If the Federal Government wanted a recent example of why the litigation funding industry should submit to the regulatory cosh as is envisaged in the Government’s Corporations Amendment (Improving Outcomes for Litigation Funding Participants) Bill 2021 then it might like to look at the latest update for creditors of the Forge Pooled Group (FPG). “The fact that…
KPMG’s Martin Jones. With wounds still agape after the whuppin’ meted out by West Australian Supreme Court judge Kenneth Martin on December 1, one wonders what fresh hiding to nothing ASIC is on as it seeks to have three insolvency practitioners from KPMG punted as the administrators of Salt Lake Potash Limited (SLPL). At a hearing in The West Australian Supreme Court this week SLPL…
Morton + Lee Insolvency’s Gavin Morton. “No”. With that one word Australia’s collective population of registered liquidators and insolvency specialists let out a resounding cheer, because it meant that the Full Bench of the Federal Court had decided not to ruin their Christmas. “The creditor claims to be entitled to set off its obligation under s 588FF of the Act to repay the preference received…
Liquidator Moira Carter. Federal Court judge Scott Goodman has rejected arguments seeking to block an amendment to an originating process that calls for the removal of the liquidator of Australian Vocational Learning Institute Pty Ltd (AVLI). As told in LFI Ventures Pty Ltd v Carter, in the matter of Australian Vocational Learning Institute Pty Ltd (in liq) [2021] FCA 1555, the arguments against inclusion of…
Moore Recovery’s Desmond Teng. Every week another new insolvency firm seems to emerge as practitioners of an optimistic bent bet on the resumption of a rate of external administrations consistent with Capitalism’s proper and unimpeded functioning. This week iNO chanced upon an example not so much of a new occurrence as of a regeneration, through freshly minted Moore Recovery. As readers will be aware, the…
Telling an insolvency practitioner their application for additional remuneration is “misconceived” is like telling Bill Shorten his plan for getting the ALP into power would work if only the plan’s primary beneficiary wasn’t himself. Red rags ain’t in it. So when an eminence of the Federal Circuit Court in Tasmania told trustee Brett Harrison that his application for a modest sum of future additional remuneration…