As SiN revealed exclusively last month, a PwC takeover of PPB Advisory (PPBA) is well progressed but the latest mail is that there’s tension aplenty among PPBA’s ranks thanks in part to the very limited number of partnerships on offer. While neither firm would confirm it yesterday, well informed sources advise there are as few as half a dozen partnerships being offered in the deal,…
The much anticipated hearing of the Commissioner of Taxation’s application for a Federal Court inquiry into Sydney liquidator David Iannuzzi commenced this week with his defence team signalling a challenge to the admissibility of the ATO’s evidence. Iannuzzi is facing a multi prong attack from the ATO, which is seeking to have the court inquire into his conduct; an order that he be banned from…
The middle of a national rebranding campaign is not when a firm wants one its most senior and prominent practitioners to be unfavourably exposed but following publication of a disciplinary notice by ARITA, Cor Cordis finds itself in such a position. Posted on the ARITA website last Friday, the notice discloses that Ozem Kassem, one of Cor Cordis’s senior partners in NSW, has been expelled from…
ASIC’s long pursuit of Randall Joubert looks set to finally conclude after the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) yesterday affirmed a 2016 decision of the Companies Auditors Liquidators Disciplinary Board (CALDB) recommending that Joubert’s registration as a liquidator be cancelled. In Joubert and Members of the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board [2018] AATA 944 (19 April 2018) AAT deputy president Brian Rayment QC said in conclusion: “I…
In the current climate of applications for leave to appeal to the High Court about decisions relating to trust property, SiN noticed this judgment emanating from South Australian-based Federal Court judge Richard White involving a dispute about bicycles, which affirms administrators’ and liquidators’ rights to claim remuneration and expenses from trust assets. The judge’s ruling came after Tim Clifton and Daniel Lopresti of Clifton Hall were earlier…
Stratos Legal has released its numbers for insolvency appointments for first quarter 2018 and they show that while some firms that dominated 2017 are off to a similarly buoyant start this year, others that finished on top in 2017 are lagging. Mackay Goodwin for example, which led the list of voluntary administrations (VAs) in NSW at the end of last year with 35, is currently not…
It’s not often that an administrator’s assessment of a deed of company arrangement (DoCA) is sufficiently bleak for them to recommend creditors ignore the DoCA’s promise and put the company into liquidation. Nor is quite the norm for the creditors to ignore the administrators’ recommendation and wholeheartedly endorse the dubious and doubtful deed. That however is what transpired in the curious matter of Syndicate Forty…
dVT’s Antony Resnick and Dave Solomons have been dragged into a dispute that has led to a challenge to the validity of their appointment as administrators to the Carzapp group of companies connected to self-described entrepreneur Graham Meyerowitz. NSW Supreme Court judge Justice Ashley Black this week heard that the challenge is based on “discreet issues” relating to the companies’ constitutions and whether the appointing director had…
David Leigh, the former PPB Advisory (PPBA) partner who stunned the profession after it emerged he had allegedly pinched $800,000 to pay debts, is set to stun again. In the Supreme Court of Queensland yesterday, Leigh filed a notice of intention to defend a claim for recovery of the funds, launched on February 28, 2018 by PPBA. From what can be gleaned from the document…
Deloitte’s Canberra office has undergone a modest restructuring of its own following the departure of partner and well known local identity Eddie Senatore. According to his Linked In profile, Senatore set up Eddie Senatore Advisory earlier this month and while the man himself could not be tracked down to discuss the reasons behind his exit, Deloitte confirmed the loss of Senatore hadn’t dented its determination…