Savants Adrian Duncan. The relative difference in rates of insolvency appointments between the UK and Australia has been starkly illustrated in a NSW Supreme Court judgment involving one of the founders of failed share market hopeful Knights Insolvency Administration. UK based chartered accountant Adrian Duncan was one of two vendors who took the doomed Knights insolvency model to investors back when the irrational exuberance of…
SV Partners managing director Terry van der Velde. Where would the legal profession be without property development and the limitless labyrinth of opportunity for dispute that bricks and mortar afford? That’s the question that comes to mind on reading the judgement of Federal Court judge Kathleen Farrell in Campbell v van der Velde as trustee of the bankrupt estate of Marilyn Anne Rowan, in the matter…
Pitcher Partners’ Andrew Yeo. Pitcher Partners’ Gess Rambaldi. They may not be overly bothered but Pitcher Partners’s Andrew Yeo and Gess Rambaldi have had to relinquish a case involving accused phoenix mastermind Phil Whiteman and his de facto wives. The pair have been pursuing recovery of the proceeds of sale of residential properties located in Balaclava, Elwood and Port Melbourne, Victoria. As the liquidators of…
Cor Cordis Melbourne partner Bruno Secatore. The 28 plus year long liquidation of Last Lap Pty Ltd makes one wonder just how many insolvency practitioners will get to take a lap around this seemingly eternal liquidation, but for the moment we’ll focus on the incumbent, Bruno Secatore. Last week the Federal Court handed down its decision in Secatore, in the matter of Last Lap Pty…
Liquidator Schon Condon. A dispute in respect of fees and disbursements has descended to the point where payments over which a liquidator claims a lien are getting the Scott Schedule treatment. The accounting equivalent of death by a thousand cuts, the Scott Schedule will involve a spreadsheet savant undertaking painstaking and pedantic analysis of liquidator Schon Condon’s WIP reports for Azmac Pty Ltd (In Liq)….
KPMG’s Peter Gothard. KPMG’s Peter Gothard has helped push a court to explicitly define the powers of liquidators in respect of claims of legal professional privilege and the outcome will not have pleased the non-executive directors (NEDs) of failed education provider Vocation Limited. In Whittenbury v Vocation Limited (No 2) [2020] FCA 653 Federal Court judge John Middleton last week ruled that Vocation’s NEDs have…
dVT’s David Solomons dVT’s Riad Tayeh Stat demands, divorcees and former business partners now rivals in the Northern Territory’s child care sector? The question here is what could possibly go right. Sydney liquidators David Solomons and Riad Tayeh might well be wondering the same, after a Judge of the Queensland Supreme Court found that liquidators don’t have to have acted unreasonably before they can be…
Liquidator Schon Condon. When you’re down it’s harder to dodge the blows, and that’s an adage to which Sydney liquidator Schon Condon can well attest after copping his second personal costs order in less than two months. On Monday Federal Court judge Jane Jagot ordered Condon to pay from his own pocket the costs of KordaMentha’s Rahul Goyal and Jennifer Nettleton, who had brought an…
Hall Chadwick’s Ginette Muller. Grant Thornton’s Mike McCann. iNO hears costs north of $50,000 are likely to be ordered against Hall Chadwick’s Ginette Muller and Marcus Watters after they took a tilt in the Supreme court of Queensland at Grant Thornton’s Mike McCann and Said Jahani over a rejected proof of debt. Back in 2018 the Hall Chadwick pair, as liquidators of Rimfire Constructions Pty…
KordaMentha’s Rahul Goyal. KordaMentha’s Jennifer Nettleton Rahul Goyal and Jennifer Nettleton have been granted liberty to make misery for rival Schon Condon as they ponder whether or not to pursue a special costs order against him. Being the special purpose liquidators (SPLs) of former precious metal refiner ACN 154 520 199 Pty Ltd, the KordaMentha pair recently applied for approval of almost $385,000 in fees…