Aston Chace co-founder Steve Naidenov. Liquidator and CPA Australia (CPAA) member Steve Naidenov was left licking his paper cuts recently after CPAA’s Disciplinary Tribunal smote him with what passes for wrath in the age of safe spaces. A reprimand – category severe – and $2000 in fines is what the Aston Chace co-founder incurred in respect of complaints whose origins harken back to when he…
Opinion Incoming Small Business Ombudsman Bruce Billson. Small Business Ombudsman and liquidator’s bane Kate Carnell. Insolvency practitioners can but hope that the persecution will end now that former Federal Minister of Small Business Bruce Billson has been anointed to replace the inquisitorial Kate Carnell as Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO). Billson did not return calls yesterday to explain how or even if…
Macks Advisory’s Peter Macks. A judge of the Supreme Court of South Australia has ordered that the registration of liquidator Peter Ivan Macks be suspended for three years after finding that he had fabricated documents in a failed bid to divert scrutiny of his conduct by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). The finding of dishonesty by Justice Sam Doyle handed down last Friday…
TMA Australia President Carl Gunther. There’s nothing like starvation, marinated in the promise of feasts to come, to expose the rifts between rivals. To wit the recent outbreak of unpleasantries between the Australian Restructuring and Turnaround Association (ARITA) and the Turnaround Management Association (TMA), which began after ARITA announced late last month that it had detected a potential issue with section 588GAAA Safe harbour— temporary…
Expelled from ARITA – Aston Chace principal Steve Naidenov. Aston Chace principal Steve Naidenov has been expelled from ARITA after failing to provide responses that the peak insolvency and restructuring organisation found satisfactory. In a short statement published this morning ARITA said Naidenov’s membership was terminated yesterday after he failed “…to provide a reasonable response to ARITA’s inquiries regarding his conduct in relation to a…
Romanis Cant’s Tony Cant. If there’s one term likely to irritate liquidators more than “corporate undertaker” it’d have to be “friendly liquidator”, a phrase that impugns the profession’s almost collective commitment to independence with unerring efficiency. We say almost because on occasion allegations may be aired by a court suggesting a liquidator has strayed, and in the case of Romanis Cant’s Tony Cant the damning…
Katherine Barnet leaving the Supreme Court Photo: iNO Images Liquidator Kate Barnet has taken leave of absence from her role as a director of the board of the Australian Restructuring, Insolvency & Turnaround Association (ARITA) following her referral to a s40-45 disciplinary committee by ASIC. As was first reported last week in Insolvency News Online (iNO) Barnet and former Bentleys colleague Bill Fletcher were referred…
AICM CEO Nick Pilavidis. Sources close to Government deliberations around how to cope with the tsunami of insolvencies anticipated once fiscal support ends have told iNO measures to restrain liquidators from pursuing preferences are under active consideration. “A lot of stakeholders are seeking to have unfair preferences suspended, the AICM for example,” a source said in response to iNO’s enquiries about options the government could…
Cor Cordis NSW partner Ozem Kassem. Image courtesy Cor Cordis. It’s probably not every day the chief professional body for registered liquidators and bankruptcy trustees cops a subpoena but it happened recently in regard to former member and Cor Cordis partner Ozem Kassem. Kassem was expelled from Australian Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association (ARITA) in April 2018 for refusing to engage an independent assessor to…
ARITA President Scott Atkins. AIIP President Stephen Hathway. ARITA president Scott Atkins wants businesses seeking safe harbour protection to be exempted from compliance with their tax and employee obligations as the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to decimate Australian SMEs. Atkins, who is Head of Risk Advisory at Norton Rose Fullbright, said to prevent mass insolvencies the federal government should freeze laws around insolvent trading and safe…