Aston Chace Group partner Ian Niccol. When you pitch a fee estimate of $50,000 for a liquidation and a few years later ask a judge to approve more than three times more you can be sure questions will be asked about such an underestimate. For the NSW Supreme Court’s chief judge in equity David Hammerschlag, several questions occurred when the remuneration application in the matter…
Aston Chace principal Vincent Pirina. “A hearing is a hearing,” the judge said. “It is not an opportunity for parties to seek judicial advice”. And with those words the lawyers acting for Aston Chace principal Vincent Pirina knew instantly how little wriggle room they’ll be afforded when next they come before NSW Supreme Court judge Kate Williams to prosecute their client’s claim for fees. “It…
Inevitably, measures implemented to cope with COVID 19 lockdowns would generate consequences unforeseen but few could have predicted that an initiative intended to preserve jobs would lead to a judge slashing a liquidator’s fees. That however is precisely what’s happened to Jirsch Sutherland managing partner Bradd Morelli, who saw his claim for almost $25,000 in remuneration lopped by $10,000 after a judge ruled that by…
Hall Chadwick’s Richard Lawrence. PKF’s Paul Allen. When liquidators get punted by creditors who then block payment of their unpaid fees, you know that the change of appointees represents not so much an end but a beginning. For Hall Chadwick’s Richard Albarran and Richard Lawrence, their role switched to that of the out-of-pocket ex-liquidators of Tauro Capital at a meeting of the company’s creditors on…
Cor Cordis Melbourne partner Bruno Secatore. Cor Cordis partner Neil Cussen. You have to wonder why successful, experienced practitioners accept appointments as administrators when they know there’s winding up applications afoot, other entities in the group are already in liquidation and according to their DIRRI, no indemnity in the offing. Is it evidence of a healthy appetite for risk? Or the desperation that prevails in…
LMFMIF receiver David Whyte. FTI Consulting’s John Park. When David Whyte announced his retirement from the BDO partnership in mid-2021, he spoke of a post-work existence devoted to the beach, the golf course and the cabins of aircraft bound no doubt for destinations neglected during his more than 40 years as a banker, accountant and liquidator. “Will finish a couple of old court appointments along…
The practice of judge shopping is well understood and acknowledged – though perhaps less than common – but what about the opposite? What about proffering for a judicial officer’s consideration an application formulated in a manner guaranteed to antagonise? This was the question that occurred to iNO after a liquidator brought a claim for remuneration deficient in detail before a judge renowned for looking bleakly…
KordaMentha’s Jen Nettleton. KordaMentha partner Rahul Goyal. How sweet it is when a liquidation actually delivers. When creditors get 100 cents in every dollar owed and there’s fat sufficient to cover every hour billed, no matter how big a percentage of assets total remuneration comprises. And best of all, a court decrees the fees are proportionate. How rare it is too. But not this week…
Telling an insolvency practitioner their application for additional remuneration is “misconceived” is like telling Bill Shorten his plan for getting the ALP into power would work if only the plan’s primary beneficiary wasn’t himself. Red rags ain’t in it. So when an eminence of the Federal Circuit Court in Tasmania told trustee Brett Harrison that his application for a modest sum of future additional remuneration…
KPMG’s Andrew Smith. KPMG’s Martin Jones. ASIC’s record of litigation against registered liquidators continues to resist improvement, with a judge yesterday labelling the regulator’s bid to induce him to slash the fees of two voluntary administrators (VAs) as “unprincipled” and “wholly pointless”. “It was never viable to differentiate work that was said to be ‘tainted’, from work said not to be. If it is ASIC’s…