Creditors

Will inquisition end as Carnell calls it quits?

Opinion Incoming Small Business Ombudsman Bruce Billson. Small Business Ombudsman and liquidator’s bane Kate Carnell. Insolvency practitioners can but hope that the persecution will end now that former Federal Minister of Small Business Bruce Billson has been anointed to replace the inquisitorial Kate Carnell as Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO). Billson did not return calls yesterday to explain how or even if…


referrer

RL’s links with referrer upset ICON directors

O’Brien Palmer’s Chris Palmer. There’s nothing like being in business with your referrer to get an appointee offside with someone and at least some of those connected to ICON Construction (NSW) Pty Ltd (ICON) were recently in a flap about Chris Palmer. Following the granting of consent orders in the NSW Supreme Court the O’Brien Palmer principal and colleague Liam Bailey replaced ICON administrator Ben…


All grimaces after Worrells missed Smiles Inclusive

Deloitte’s Luci Palaghia. Deloitte’s Tim Heenan. A $4 million indemnity is not the kind of parachute one likes to see handed to a rival but in the contest for the ASX-listed Smiles Inclusive VA appointment late last year, it was almost certainly secured creditor NAB that decided who got the velvet rip cord. The thought occurred as iNO read various materials associated with Smiles Inclusive,…


VA Verney falls on sword at 11th hour

11th hour sword fall – Greyhouse Partners’ Ben Verney. Sydney based insolvency practitioners Chris Palmer and Liam Bailey supplanted Melbourne counterpart Ben Verney late last year after court orders were agreed less than a day before Verney and the creditors wanting him gone were due to put their conflicting arguments before NSW Supreme Court Corporations judge Ashley Black. On Monday December 28, short minutes of…


Ex-staff flung under the bus as bosses get grilled

Struck-off liquidator David Iannuzzi. Former Veritas Advisory director Steve Naidenov. The public examination conducted by Brooke Bird’s Robyn Erskine over the last month has been instructive on multiple levels. For a start, it’s put ex-liquidator David Iannuzzi in the witness box for the second time in as many months. That’s an ordeal Iannuzzi might have thought he’d avoided when in November last year Federal Court…


Appetite for excitement pinged by judge

CJG Advisory’s Mathew Gollant. Melbourne-based IP Mathew Gollant must possess a fair appetite for excitement given his acceptance of an appointment as liquidator by creditors voluntary liquidation (CVL) of ACN 081 014 208 Pty Ltd, which until September 30, 2020 went by the name Millennium Electronics Pty Ltd (Millennium). iNO’s arrived at this conclusion after reading the judgment of South Australian Supreme Court judge Mark…


Liquidator foiled after payment ruled not void

O’Brien Palmer’s Chris Palmer. There are times when one is compelled to ask what motivates a liquidator to pursue an 11th hour payment to a creditor when the sought after sum, once costs are deducted, amounts to sixth fifths of bugger all? For iNO such a time came on Tuesday as we read the judgement of Justice Fabian Gleeson In the matter of Skypac Aviation…


Ferrier Hodgson pair duped by fake mortgages

KPMG’s Max Donnelly. KPMG’s Robyn Duggan. A judge has suggested liquidators and former partners of Ferrier Hodgson demonstrated one of the last desirable characteristics in those responsible for administering insolvent entities – they were too trusting. In Combined Property Holdings Pty Ltd v Galea & Ors [2020] QSC 338 Justice James Henry of the Supreme Court of Queensland in Cairns recounts how Robyn Duggan and…


Seven month silence earns adverse costs order

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…


Auxilium’s Cockatoo coup bails out ex-receivers

Auxilium Partners’ Bob Jacobs. There will be jubilation in certain quarters following the sale last week of Pluton Resources’ iron ore operation on Cockatoo Island, located in the aptly named Buccaneer Archipelago off West Australia’s northern coast. Whilst Pluton receiver and Auxilium Partners principal Bob Jacobs can claim credit for succeeding where a procession of his predecessors failed, KordaMentha’s John Bumbak and Janna Robertson (now…