Cor Cordis’s Jeremy Nipps. What’s the world come to when a dispenser of justice prefers the evidence of a recruitment consultant over that of a registered liquidator? End of times is what. Probity. Integrity. Acting at times as officers of the court. Liquidators are rightly held to a high standard. The reputation of recruitment consultants meanwhile has journalists and lawyers hastening to stand by their…
Exonerated: Liquidator Jason Bettles. Queensland liquidator Jason Bettles might have been naive but he was never complicit. That’s the conclusion of Federal Court judge Brigitte Markovic who in delivering judgment in Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Bettles [2023] FCA 975 has written another chapter in the burgeoning Apocrypha of failed litigation commenced by the corporate regulator. “A review of his evidence and the way…
Deloitte partner Sean Holmes. Cor Cordis partner Tom Birch. While it might appear that today’s edition comprises a “Focus on the West” and a spotlight on Deloitte partner Sean Holmes, we can assure iNO readers that it’s a coincidence. Unlike our other yarn involving Holmes’s efforts to wind up a Ponzi scheme based on algorithmic trading of foreign exchange, this old economy tale deals with…
Lowe Lippmann partner Gideon Rathner If a full bench of the Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that creditors were misled, it’s a fair bet that when the costs of the resultant litigation come to be determined, indemnities will be endangered. In circumstances were that same full bench also found that the architects of the creditors’ nescience were less than forthcoming in submissions to the…
Lowe Lippmann partner Gideon Rathner. It had to take the long road but a persistent creditor has been vindicated in its bid to have a deed of company arrangement (DoCA) terminated after the Federal Court of Appeal last week found that the deed had been executed on the basis of materially misleading information. The impugned information was contained in a Section 530A Report provided to…
Richard Auricht South Australian liquidator Richard Auricht could be off to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) after a Schedule 2 disciplinary committee ruled that his registration be cancelled. In accordance with the committee’s ruling ASIC published the decision with reasons yesterday. See: https://download.asic.gov.au/media/gacn0ghu/20230626-richard-auricht-report-final.pdf “It is not the basis upon which the fees were incurred, or the entitlement to being paid that ASIC believes makes Mr…
Hogan Sprowles partner Michael Hogan. A decision from the NSW Supreme Court this week shines an unforgiving light on the handling of an administration by two Sydney practitioners who’ve been ousted after a creditor applied to have a deed of company arrangement (DoCA) terminated. “… unusually, in my experience, Mr Hogan indicated in evidence that the Administrators would now not seek to recover remuneration beyond…
Woodgate & Co’s Giles Woodgate. After six months on light duties those individuals called upon to consider the allegations of misconduct that ASIC routinely levels against registered liquidators suddenly have a full in-tray. “The committee must decide within 45 business days after interviewing you whether or not you should be registered as a liquidator: s20-20(3)”. ASIC Regulatory Guide 258. Last week Sydney liquidator Giles Woodgate’s…
Menzies Advisory’s Michael Caspaney. Victorian liquidator Peter Goodin. It’s past indiscretions at 10 paces in the Federal Court this week as interests associated with the Modscape Group continue to do everything they can to prevent the liquidator who had concerns about their 2017 restructure being paid the fees he earned and the expenses he incurred during his tumultuous, 11 month tenure. “Mr Luntz does not…
Dye & Co’s Hamish MacKinnon. Dye & Co’s Nicholas Giasoumi. Issuing demands for payment of claims unproven at the time the demands are issued might well be a common practice but Federal Court judge David O’Callaghan has placed it on the endangered list. In his decision in Gadsden v MacKinnon (Liquidator), in the matter of Allibi Pty Ltd (in liq) [2023] FCA 647 Justice O’Callaghan…