Articles by Peter Gosnell

Liqs defeat tax office to recover DoCA payments

Pitcher Partners’ Gess Rambaldi. Pitcher Partners’ Andrew Yeo. Pitchers Partners’ Andrew Yeo and Gess Rambaldi have extricated an unlikely victory over the Deputy Comissioner of Taxation (DCoT) in respect of payments made by a company subject to a deed of company arrangement (DoCA). As is revealed in Yeo, in the matter of Ready Kit Cabinets Pty Ltd (in liq) v Deputy Commissioner of Taxation [2020]…


KPMG partner pushes privilege envelope

KPMG’s Peter Gothard. KPMG’s Peter Gothard has helped push a court to explicitly define the powers of liquidators in respect of claims of legal professional privilege and the outcome will not have pleased the non-executive directors (NEDs) of failed education provider Vocation Limited. In Whittenbury v Vocation Limited (No 2) [2020] FCA 653 Federal Court judge John Middleton last week ruled that Vocation’s NEDs have…


Stat demand rebounds as costs imposed on dVT duo

dVT’s David Solomons dVT’s Riad Tayeh Stat demands, divorcees and former business partners now rivals in the Northern Territory’s child care sector? The question here is what could possibly go right. Sydney liquidators David Solomons and Riad Tayeh might well be wondering the same, after a Judge of the Queensland Supreme Court found that liquidators don’t have to have acted unreasonably before they can be…


DoCA disaster as liquidators seize deed funds

Cor Cordis partner Alan Walker. Hall Chadwick’s Richard Albarran. From iNO’s perspective, one of the fundamental flaws in the deed of company arrangement (DoCAs) concept is that control of the company returns to the same person or persons who ran the company into the ground in the first place. Por que? In the matter of Antqip Hire Pty Limited (subject to deed of company arrangement)…


GPL ordered to pay SPLs costs out of own pocket

Liquidator Schon Condon. When you’re down it’s harder to dodge the blows, and that’s an adage to which Sydney liquidator Schon Condon can well attest after copping his second personal costs order in less than two months. On Monday Federal Court judge Jane Jagot ordered Condon to pay from his own pocket the costs of KordaMentha’s Rahul Goyal and Jennifer Nettleton, who had brought an…


Deloitte server not out of bounds for ex-partner

Ex-Deloitte partner Eddie Senatore. On the face of it, the judgment in the matter of Today’s Homes and Lifestyle Pty Ltd (in liquidation) v McCoullough seems to suggest that Canberra-based practitioner Enzio Senatore might not have access to information saved to a computer server before he departed Deloitte in 2018. The April 6 decision concerns an application seeking to have struck out Senatore’s claim for…


Knowledge is Power

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Phoenix accused’s de factos a problem for Pitcher pair

Pitcher Partners’ Andrew Yeo. Pitcher Partners’ Gess Rambaldi. Pitcher Partners’ Andrew Yeo and Gess Rambaldi are venturing into tricky legal waters as they seek to recover more than $1 million they’ve traced to companies linked to alleged phoenix mastermind, Philip Whiteman. In the Federal Court in Melbourne yesterday, the pair – who were first appointed liquidators of Whiteman’s Armstrong & Shaw Group of Companies (A&S…


Costs order looming over disputed proof of debt

Hall Chadwick’s Ginette Muller. Grant Thornton’s Mike McCann. iNO hears costs north of $50,000 are likely to be ordered against Hall Chadwick’s Ginette Muller and Marcus Watters after they took a tilt in the Supreme court of Queensland at Grant Thornton’s Mike McCann and Said Jahani over a rejected proof of debt. Back in 2018 the Hall Chadwick pair, as liquidators of Rimfire Constructions Pty…


Lethal delay sinks liquidator’s voidables play

PCI Partners’ Stephen Michell. Leaving it till the last day to seek an extension of time in which to consider bringing voidable transaction proceedings has rebounded badly on Melbourne-based liquidator Stephen Michell. Last week the parties who would’ve been the subject of those voidable transaction proceedings – assuming the PCI Partners’ principal launched them – won an appeal in the Supreme Court of Victoria which…