John Sheahan and Ian Locke have obtained the imprimatur of the Federal Court for a deal which will see significant sums paid to the Australian Tax Office (ATO). The deal represents a partial settlement of the long running BCI Finances dispute, but in his judgment of September 28, 2018 Justice Richard White was at pains to remind the South-Australian-based practitioners that if this deal goes sour it’s…
When regulators insist on timely compliance it’s no surprise that the regulated grow cynical when their efforts aren’t reciprocated. Registered liquidators have been telling Insolvency News Online (INO) that all is not as it should be in respect of the provision of documents by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) in response to requests made through the ATO business portal. The requests are made under Freedom…
Correction & Clarification Glenn Crisp has been mentioned a second time during public examinations being run by Pitcher Partners Andrew Yeo and Gess Rambaldi as they investigate a $100 million tax-avoidance and phoenix-facilitation racket allegedly masterminded by Melbourne man Phil Whiteman. For the record the Jirsch Sutherland Victoria managing partner is not accused of any wrongdoing and Crisp is one of approximately 100 registered liquidators Australia-wide who accepted…
Melbourne liquidator Andrew Poulter has picked up the kind of appointment that might be expected to attract close attention. A fortnight ago Poulter filed his Declaration of Independence, Relevant Relationships and Indemnities (DIRRI) in relation to a company called PBDB Services Pty Ltd. The DIRRI revealed that the referrer was fellow Melbourne-based liquidator Ross McDermott, who, in between listening to your correspondent’s enquiries, took the…
Western Sydney accountant and insolvency referrer Gerardo “Gerry” Incollingo has denied allegations made by the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (DCoT) that he backdated documents to help controversial property developer Charbel Demian avoid a $35 million tax and penalties bill. In Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Advanced Holdings Pty Ltd & Ors Federal Court Judge Anna Katzmann lays out how on August 21, 2018 she made orders freezing assets controlled by Demian’s Advanced Holdings…
COMMENT: In Pitcher’s Phoenix Probe Yields Liquidators’ Names we revealed how as part of their investigations into the alleged A&S Services tax avoidance scheme, Pitcher Partners had contacted 100 registered liquidators Australia wide who had accepted referrals from A&S or associated entities, “querying if those liquidators had identified the appointment of dummy directors and/or phoenix transactions”. According to Pitcher’s Lindsay Bainbridge, overwhelmingly the various liquidators did identify…
What a liquidator and ASIC jointly affirm in an enforceable undertaking (EU), a tax agent can seemingly refute in a few hours of public examination. Such was what INO witnessed last Friday in the Federal Court as accountant and registered tax agent Frank Bruzzano denied ever having provided advice on the solvency or otherwise of any company or client, including Lidcombe Plastering Services Pty Ltd (LPS), its…
Behind the tawdry excitement stoked by tales of escorts and a suspicious fire is the far more intriguing story of how three Hall Chadwick partners came to be appointed voluntary administrators (VAs) of two Majella Group (MG) entities connected to developer Seb Monsour, the controversial brother-in-law of former premier Campbell Newman. Mansour had been planning to develop the heritage-listed Broadway Hotel in the Brisbane suburb of Wooloongabba but he…
Pitcher Partners‘ mother-of-all public examinations kicked off this week and already two liquidators names have been mentioned in despatches as the marathon inquiry into an alleged $100 million phoenixing scheme gains momentum in room 8B of Melbourne’s Federal Court. Pitcher’s Andrew Yeo and Gess Rambaldi are being funded by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to prise open what may be the largest phoenix syndicate yet uncovered and as part of…
We would have thought that if something INO wrote forced a pair of registered liquidators to relinquish an appointment as voluntary administrators (VAs) then that would potentially be beneficial for creditors but according to Hall Chadwick’s Brent Kijurina not so. As INO reported last week in Hall Chadwick’s Validus DIRRI Heavy On Referrer Detail, Kijurina and colleague Richard Albarran recently lodged a lengthy Declaration of Independence, Relevant…