PKF’s Brad Tonks. Imagine, if you are so predisposed, a day when the ASIC database communicates with itself. Information uploaded dissolves instantly into a cyber solution. There it’s compared with every relevant byte of meaning already saturating ASIC’s deep reservoir of data. At quantum computing speeds, the digital litmus satisfies itself, classifying the intel as compliant with the myriad rules and regulations that have been…
PKF’s Brad Tonks. The admission of a related party debt appears to have been sufficient for a court to agree to replace an incumbent liquidator with an applicant creditor’s preferred appointee. In the matter of Hawkesbury House Pty Limited (in liquidation) [2019] NSWSC 1673 NSW Supreme Court judge Ashley Black made orders replacing liquidator Adam Farnsworth with PKF’s Brad Tonks. This was on the application…
BPS Recovery’s Mitchell Ball. Jump on directors, back-dated documents, low ball fees and a common referrer – a disciplinary committee convened to consider whether liquidator Mitchell Ball should remain registered has benched the BPS Recovery partner for a year but declined to cancel his registration. Making its findings public yesterday the committee said that Ball’s contrition, the calibre of those providing endorsements of his character…
Worrells partner Jason Bettles. Editor’s Note: On Friday, August 18, 2023 Justice Brigitte Markovic of the Federal Court of Australia dismissed ASIC’s case against liquidator Jason Bettles and ordered the regulator to pay Bettles’ costs. Worrells partner Jason Bettles is facing a judicial inquiry amid allegations he facilitated an illegal phoenix scheme concocted by the controllers of the failed Members Alliance Group (MA Group). In…
Amanda Young. It’s been almost 12 months since her employment was terminated but challenges continue for suspended liquidator Amanda Young. Last week ASIC referred the former Jirsch Sutherland (Jirsch) partner to a Schedule 2 Disciplinary Committee, alleging misconduct in respect of sections 40-40(1)(f) and (m) of the Insolvency Practice Schedule. Section 40-40(1)(f) deals with an alleged general contravention by a liquidator while (m) involves the…
Imagine if registered liquidators’ viewed the meeting of a regulatory deadline as an aspirational target. ASIC would visit upon such transgressors a veritable plague of show cause notices, and woe betide the unrepentant. But does the regulator feel obliged to demonstrate a standard of compliance as scrupulous as that which it demands from those it licences? iNO thinks not, at least in terms of the…
The corporate cop has secured a much needed win after two pre-insolvency advisers pleaded guilty to money laundering. In a statement yesterday ASIC said that Stephen O’Neill of Port Melbourne, Victoria and John Narramore, of Main Beach Queensland had both pleaded guilty in the Brisbane District Court to one charge of dealing in the proceeds of crime. The hapless client who engaged them – Cap…
Subject to a RevLiq: Amos Insolvency’s Peter Amos. Editor’s Note: iNO reported in an earlier version of this story that AAF funds would be recovered via the Industry Funding Levy. ASIC has since advised that this is NOT the case. After reporting last week on the appointment by ASIC of two Reviewing Liquidators (RevLiqs) iNO has learned that one of the unfortunates under review is…
Worrells partner Simon Cathro. Brooke Bird’s Robyn Erskine. Apart from ASIC’s April 2019 Corporate Insolvency Update there’s been precious from the regulator in regards to the work of the Reviewing Liquidator’s (RevLiq) Panel, set up at the beginning of the year to give effect to the Insolvency Law Reform Act 2016 (ILRA 2016) reforms. iNO had hoped that would change this week after we sent…
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…