Languishing in a Thai rehab clinic may or may not be a sound basis for defending oneself against a plaintiff intent on recovering impugned payments but either way Sam Henderson has likely discovered by now that he’s been ordered to pay a weighty slab of almost $663,000, awarded to liquidator Mike Smith yesterday In the Matter of Central Management (NSW) Pty Ltd [2017] NSWSC 1258. A former…
When you use your casting vote to defy the wants of the largest creditor and that creditor is the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (DCoT), expect blowback. In the case of Veritas Advisory principal David Iannuzzi, the blowback manifested in him being ousted from an appointment yesterday. According to orders made in the Federal Court Iannuzzi has resigned, by consent and without admission, as court-appointed liquidator of North…
The barrister defending controversial ex-liquidator Andrew Wily against ASIC’s call for a judicial inquiry didn’t hold back yesterday. “There’s an element of spite about this,” barrister Ian Jackman SC told presiding Judge Paul Brereton as he sought to undermine ASIC’s case. “They want public censure,” he said. Jackman’s allegation of a spite motivation was part of a bid to demonstrate why the regulator’s application for a…
Well litigation funder Doug Hayter has extracted himself from the debacle that is Young V Thomson (formerly trustee of the property of Young) [2017] FCAFC 140 but the same cannot quite be said for Veritas Advisory’s Louise Thomson, who will be forced to scrape together as much as a quarter of a million dollars from her own resources following last week’s judgment of the Federal Court…
Down in bleak city, Pitcher Partners’ Andrew Yeo and Gess Rambaldi have failed in an attempt to reboot a $337,928.27 preference claim after a judge ruled that amendments to their originating process were invalid and the alleged preference recipient was therefore served out of time. The judge laid the blame for the bungle with the liquidators’ lawyers. Yeo and Rambaldi were appointed liquidators of Convector Grain…
In correspondence obtained by SiN, Ten Network Holdings’ administrator Mark Korda expressed his view that the ARITA Code of Professional Practice (COPP) required an upgrade if it was to adequately accommodate the realities of modern restructuring, particularly the realities represented by his firm’s work for Ten’s stakeholders in the months prior to its appointment as voluntary administrators (VAs) of the Ten Group. “KordaMentha recognises the important…
In the wake of KordaMentha’s application to appoint a special purpose administrator (SPL) to Ten Network Holdings, correspondence obtained by SiN reveals the pressure placed upon the top tier insolvency and restructuring firm by both the corporate regulator and the Australian Restructuring, Insolvency and Turnaround Association (ARITA). In a letter released by the Federal Court, ARITA chief executive officer John Winter urged Ten’s voluntary administrators (VAs) to…
The liquidator regulator continues to use non-compliance as a means by which to cull under-performers and this week it was Raymond Anthony Sutcliffe offering up a mea culpa in the form of an enforceable undertaking (EU) that effectively benches the Melbournian for a minimum three years effective from June 28, 2017. According to the ASIC announcement the EU requires Sutcliffe to request that his registration be…
Searches of insolvent companies referred to in Pitcher Partners‘ report on the A & S Services Australia Group (ASSAG) have identified at least one insolvency practice whose principals are now assisting regulators probing a multi-million dollar tax evasion scheme allegedly masterminded by former bankrupt Philip Whiteman. Pitcher’s partner and report author Andrew Yeo, who interviewed various individuals connected to ASSAG, said in the report that ASSAG group…
The Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (DCoT) has moved swiftly to take control of multiple insolvent entities connected to the alleged $130 million Plutus Payroll fraud and Deloitte partners Eddie Senatore, Tim Norman and Sal Algeri have scooped up what’s likely to be some very securely funded roles as provisional liquidators. On June 6 in the NSW Supreme Court DCoT intervened in a number of winding up…