The puddle of liquidators in West Australia is generally thought to be a few tadpoles short of what’s needed to maintain a population unblighted by the possibility of conflict so it might have been tough to find a local able to act as liquidator of Anthemis Pty Ltd, a private corporate vehicle wholly controlled by registered liquidator and Perth insolvency luminary Garry Trevor. “It was…
Hamilton Murphy’s Stephen Dixon. The Federal Court has refused to find that Victoria Project Pty Ltd (VPPL) liquidator Stephen Dixon and his firm misled shareholders when he told them his fees to complete a members voluntary winding up (MVL) would be capped at $50,000 plus out of pocket expenses and GST. As is disclosed in Dixon (Liquidator), in the matter of Victoria Project Pty Ltd…
Hall Chadwick’s Richard Lawrence. Hall Chadwick’s Richard Albarran. A liquidators’ remuneration application lodged in the Supreme Court of Victoria is being opposed by The Australian Tax Office (ATO) on the basis that much of the work should have been performed by more junior staff. In an 82 page affidavit dated December 21, 2022 ATO senior insolvency advisor Gary Busby outlines six grounds of objection to…
Hall Chadwick partner Blair Pleash. The year has ended on a potentially awkward note for Hall Chadwick partner Blair Pleash after a court last week ordered an end to the administration of Jubilee Infrastructure Pty Ltd. Pleash, who flies the flag regularly for Hall Chadwick in Queensland, was appointed administrator of Jubilee on December 6. By December 9 one of the directors of the company…
Chris Baskerville of Jirsch Sutherland. Insolvency practitioners need to be a thick-skinned and philosophical lot. Resentful creditors, regulators inclined to scape goat and duplicitous directors make for a generally adversarial stakeholder group that’s all too eager to pillory appointees at the merest whiff of an oversight. It’s no profession for those who need to be loved and when a practitioner cops a kicking they need…
Wexted Advisors founder and principal Joe Hayes. Wexted Advisors partner Andrew McCabe. Reaping almost $130 million from the sale of public houses looks like an exceptional result for a pair of Sydney receivers but a decision to affirm a director’s unit trust holding could see distribution of the profits disrupted by a Special Purpose Liquidator (SPL). Since December 2021 when they were appointed receiver managers…
Hall Chadwick’s Richard Albarran. Hall Chadwick partner Kathleen Vouris. Reading the latest report to creditors from the liquidators of Orbis Commodities Pty Ltd, iNO is yet again moved to ponder on the wisdom of forcing appointment takers to provide a life-of-job fee estimate in their initial notice to creditors. When the estimate is between $50,000 and $100,000 and 18 months later the amount being sought…
McGrathNicol’s Anthony Connelly. McGrathNicol’s Jamie Harris. It’s generally agreed among the registered liquidator population that there are too few proceedings commenced against pre-insolvency advisors. The primary reasons are of course practical. It’s costly to prosecute claims of creditor defeating dispositions and if the advisors have done their job the liquidators won’t have any assets they can tap to pay lawyers. Without external funding whatever sharp…
KordaMentha partner Kate Conneely. KordaMentha partner Rahul Goyal. Those few independent insolvency firms that operate at the top end of the market – McGrathNicol and KordaMentha specifically – can have a hard time clearing the conflict bar. Secureds are forever knocking on their doors, begging to avail themselves of their forensic expertise and often they’ll come knocking again once the investigating accountant (IA) reports have…
Wexted Advisors partner Andrew McCabe. Wexted Advisors founder and principal Joe Hayes. Lavishing creditors with a fat dividend on the eve of the festive season is no doubt an aspiration close to the heart of every insolvency practitioner, so one can imagine the distinctly unChristmas-like sentiments that must have echoed through the Pitt Street offices of Wexted Advisors early Monday morning. Unwelcome correspondence had arrived…