Brooke Bird’s Robyn Erskine. There were testy exchanges in Federal Court room 19B yesterday, and it wasn’t just the examinees being put to question by counsel for Brooke Bird’s Robyn Erskine who were getting hot under the collar as the air conditioning failed. More than once barrister Scott Aspinall remarked about the oppressive atmosphere in the court where he has been grilling individuals associated with…
Amanda Young at the NSW Supreme Court. 10 months after being charged with multiple criminal offences, former Jirsch Sutherland partner and struck-off liquidator Amanda Young has pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud and one count of dishonesty. Young pleaded guilty in the NSW Local Court on January 19, 2021. She will return to the NSW District Court ahead of sentencing on February 26. Her…
Jones Partners’ Bruce Gleeson. Highly regarded Jones Partners’ principal Bruce Gleeson has dodged a bullet after NSW Supreme Court judge Ashley Black this week chose not to initiate an inquiry into his conduct as liquidator of Military History Tours Australia Pty Ltd (MHT), a company which offered travel to sites like Gallipoli until relations with Swiss-based cruise ship operator MSC Cruises SA soured in 2014….
Jirsch Sutherland’s new recruit, Paul Pattison. Jirsch Sutherland may have lost a veteran partner with the departure next March of Sule Arnautovic but it’s recently gained a national business development manager, and if the firm wanted someone who can relate to business owners going through the wringer then who better than ex-liquidator and ex-trustee in bankruptcy Paul Pattison? About a decade ago, Victoria-based Pattison went…
Olvera Advisors’ Kate Barnet. Liquidator Bill Fletcher. Liquidators Kate Barnett and Bill Fletcher have been exonerated by a committee convened in July this year to consider contraventions ASIC alleged were perpetrated in the early days of the Octaviar liquidation. The allegations were brought to Barnett and Fletcher’s attention in show cause notices under section 40-40 of the Corporations Act issued by ASIC in 2019. After…
Worrells Partner Aaron Lucan. Worrells’ partner Aaron Lucan has been ordered to pay an indemnity costs order personally after indulging a seven month silence in respect of proceedings brought against the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (DCoT) by a company to which Lucan is the appointed liquidator. “The effect of ordering the first plaintiff to pay the defendants’ costs would be to visit the consequences of…
Macks Advisory’s Peter Macks. South Australian liquidator Peter Macks faked documents in an attempt to foil an ASIC investigation, a court has found. In Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Peter Ivan Macks (No.4) [2020] SASC 209 South Australian Supreme Court judge Sam Doyle said Macks had acted dishonestly and for the purpose of deceiving ASIC in respect of a memoranda Macks provided to the…
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. ASIC has suffered a humiliating setback in its bid to have the liquidator’s registration of Jason Bettles cancelled, with the Federal Court on Wednesday ordering the regulator to reformulate its…
Ex-liquidator David Iannuzzi. Veritas Advisory’s David Iannuzzi may have avoided a grilling last year when he consented to orders banning him from practising as a liquidator for a decade but that won’t prevent him appearing next week in public examinations being conducted by the liquidators of RC Group (Aust) Limited (RC Group) as part of the ATO’s Project Cargo inquiry into alleged tax evasion. Iannuzzi…
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…