BBY liquidator Stephen Vaughan. The brain-contorting complexity of the BBY Limited liquidation is back on display after liquidators Stephen Vaughan and Ian Hall sought to retreat to a simpler regime for the recovery of costs. The simpler regime was first put in place in 2015 by Justice Paul Brereton, who has since fled to the Court of Appeal. At the time the regime was seen…
O’Brien Palmer’s Daniel Frisken. O’Brien Palmer’s Daniel Frisken won’t be the last insolvency practitioner to rue the increasingly intrusive remit of the corporate regulator but the circumstances around how he and OBP partner Liam Bailey came to stand aside as appointees on Urban Couture thanks to the dreaded double might test make for an instructive tale. Frisken was approached about a possible voluntary administrator’s (VA)…
Menzies Advisory’s Michael Caspaney Those construction industry insolvencies seem to have particularly restive committees of inspection (COIs) and it may be that the Walton Construction entities in liquidation fall into this category given the judgment handed down last week. In the matter of Williams & Kersten Pty Ltd ACN 141 894 724 & Anor v Walton Construction (QLD) Pty Ltd (In Liquidation) ACN 100 833…
Welcome to The Opinionator, a new addition to the insolvency-focussed coverage featured by Insolvency News Online. Whether you have a point to propound or a spleen to vent, The Opinionator awaits your ire, your dudgeon, your debate and your discord. Contact [email protected] for details. By Anon. After many inquiries into the conduct of external administrators – including the Arrif case – it was thought at…
John Kukulovski. Andrew Ngo. In the final months of 2015, a most irregular meeting took place between two senior partners of Jirsch Sutherland and a team of ASIC officers. Information obtained by iNO shows that the aim of the November 24, 2015 meeting was to canvass issues relating to a supposed “confession” made by Andrew Ngo, a former Jirsch director who joined Mackay Goodwin in…
Living in Prague: Clamenz Lawyers’ Daniel Clarke. INO has republished this article because it has been brought to our attention that the previous version contains imputations that Veritas Advisory, and its directors, knowingly accepted an appointment of a company involved in a tax scam. In fact the Plutus Payroll Australia Pty Ltd appointment was not referred to Veritas Advisory by Mr Clarke or Clamnez Lawyers. …
dVT’s Suelen McCallum. Identifying who will ultimately act as expert solvency witness for Clive Palmer in his defence of claims brought by Queensland Nickel’s (QN) general and special purpose liquidators is turning out to be less straightforward than iNO originally assumed. After reporting last week that Pitcher Partners’ Perth chief Bryan Hughes had been named in the Queensland Supreme Court as Palmer’s preferred nominee to…
Helm Advisory’s Stephen Hathway. Veritas Advisory principal David Iannuzzi. When it rains it pours the saying goes and it’s certainly bucketing down in the vicinity of David Nicholas Iannuzzi. As reported previously, the embattled insolvency practitioner is awaiting a judge’s ruling on orders which could see his registration as a liquidator cancelled. Those orders – to which Iannuzzi has consented – also allow for the…
Many will have seen the 12th ASIC Corporate Insolvency Update land in their email inboxes yesterday but iNO wonders how many clicked on the first case study, which details, without naming names, a curious story about a wedding to illustrate the extent of the precautions ASIC expects liquidators to take when assessing potential threats to their independence. Independence is always a hot topic and this…
Pitcher Partners WA chief Bryan Hughes. After an understandably extensive search Clive Palmer has found an insolvency practitioner willing to step into the role of expert witness vacated last month by Peter Dinoris. Dinoris’s voluntarily cancellation of his registration as a liquidator came into effect on June 29, less than two weeks after AFSA announced on June 17 that it had accepted the former Vincents…