Hall Chadwick’s Richard Lawrence. Every pandemic has a silver lining and Hall Chadwick’s Richard Lawrence and Richard Albarran may see an advantage in the fact that meetings are being held remotely as they prepare to put a controversial debt compromise to creditors of failed start-up accelerator Tauro Capital. Since their appointment Lawrence has identified almost $1.6 million borrowed from Tauro by sole director Simon Ward…
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 Riad Tayeh dVT’s Antony de Vries There’s a line in the television series Mad Men where Roger Sterling of fictional advertising agency Sterling Cooper says: “advertising’s a great business, except for the clients”. Some Liquidators might feel that sentiment could equally apply to the business of insolvency, except “clients” – at least in the case of dVT founders Anton de Vries and Riad Tayeh…
ARITA President Scott Atkins. AIIP President Stephen Hathway. ARITA president Scott Atkins wants businesses seeking safe harbour protection to be exempted from compliance with their tax and employee obligations as the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to decimate Australian SMEs. Atkins, who is Head of Risk Advisory at Norton Rose Fullbright, said to prevent mass insolvencies the federal government should freeze laws around insolvent trading and safe…
DW Advisory’s Paul Weston. Worrells’ Simon Cathro. Paul Weston probably knew when he accepted the appointment as voluntary administrator (VA) of the Kiwi-controlled South Pelagic Holdings Pty Ltd (receivers and managers appointed) that his tenure could be brief. By the time lawyer Michael O’Neill brought the referral to the now ex-Pitcher Partners‘ partner in December 2019, receivers were installed and winding up proceedings underway. Weston…
Crinitis’ VA Graeme Beattie. Worrells’ Graeme Beattie has been careful in his public statements regarding the collapse of the Crinitis restaurant group. He’s reportedly spoken of difficult trading conditions and the closure of poor performing sites to preserve value. He’s quoted as referring to the possibility that some portion of the business might be salvaged via sale as a going concern or if not a…
Arrium deed administrator Bryan Webster. It’s not too often that directors of an insolvent entity or group have the external administrators fighting tooth and nail to keep them out of court. This would appear to be the case however after Arrium‘s deed administrators flagged their intention to appeal a recent judgment which has paved the way for a public examination of former director Colin Galbraith….
Bentleys’ Tracey Knight. Liquidator Jim Downey Craig Walton, a key figure in one of the most controversial corporate restructures of recent times, has declared bankruptcy a week before the commencement of a trial brought by liquidators chasing the 63 year old for a $1.65 million debt. A search of the National Personal Insolvency Index reveals Craig Hall Walton, unemployed of East Melbourne, declared himself bankrupt…
AS Advisory’s Andrew Schwarz AS Advisory’s Ben Corbin Victorian practitioners Andrew Schwarz and Ben Conrad are in the middle of an administration that will likely evolve into one of those stories liquidators tell each other about the joys of material omissions, and being caught between difficult directors and obstreperous creditors. The yarn – as told in MCCA Asset Management Ltd v Kamata Homes Pty Ltd…
dVT’s David Solomons. dVT’s Antony Resnick. To say it’s been a while would be to criminally underestimate the time it’s taken for dVT’s Dave Solomons and Antony Resnick to be confirmed in their appointment as administrators of the Carzapp (CZA) group of companies. The pair were appointed in August 2017 but by April 2018 a shareholder who was also one of the three directors of CZA had…