FEG

MK liquidator floored by phoenix allegation

Sydney liquidator Steve Naidenov has been asked if he knew an insolvency appointment was a phoenix transaction during an at times heated public examination into the affairs of the MK Floors Group. The question, which Naidenov strenuously rejected, came towards the end of the first day of a multi-day examination brought by the Commonwealth’s FEG Recovery Unit. FEG is seeking $1.5 million from Naidenov and Veritas Advisory head…


Parbery eschews defamation remedies

Insolvency practitioners (IPs) have long known that to make it as a corporate resurrectionist you need a hide like rhinocerous whose mother was an elephant from a family of pachyderms predisposed to exceptionally robust skin thicknesses. An impressive epidermis however wouldn’t be the only reason Ferrier Hodgson’s new star recruit Steve Parbery hasn’t joined his FTI Consulting counterparts in suing one Clive Frederick Palmer for defamation. Parbery…


McGrathNicol: appointor’s asset ploy challenged

The test-case loving litigators running the highly profitable FEG recoveries unit have again spiked McGrathNicol’s cream, this time intervening in an application by the receivers of Australian Road Express (ARX) and Jolly’s Transport Services, who’re seeking orders allowing them to treat receivables as a non-circulating asset. McGrathNicol’s Anthony Connelly, Rob Kirman and Robert Smith made the application back in April this year and served it on…


Liquidators and ex-Labor MP to be grilled by FEG

Along with a luminary of the Labor party’s past, Veritas Advisory’s David Iannuzzi and Steve Naidenov have been summoned to appear for public examination in August in relation to the liquidation of the MK Floors Group. Regular INO readers may recall that after Iannuzzi and Naidenov were appointed voluntary administrators (VAs) of the MK Floors Group on October 10, 2016 they had to fend off…


PPB takeover gives PwC’s Vickers convenient exit

Derrick Vicker’s troubled tenure as liquidator of the Ostwald Brothers construction group is set to come to end, with the PwC partner preparing to make way for John Park and Kelly Anne Trenfield of FTI Consulting on the basis – according to Vickers – of a potential conflict destined to emerge once PwC completes its acquisition of PPB Advisory (PPBA) on August 1. For Vickers,…


Court agrees to exempt priority creditors at VAs’ cost

Over in West Australia three of Hall Chadwick’s movers and shakers have extracted an interesting decision in regard to exempting priority creditors from DoCAs from newly gowned Justice John Vaughan of the Supreme Court of the Sandgropers. In Richard Albarran, Brent Kijurina and Cameron Shaw as joint and several administrators of Coopers & Oxley Builders Pty Ltd (Administrators Appointed) [2018] WASC 161 (29 May 2018) the VAs…


Promotion: AIIP Conference tackles big questions

Some of the profession’s most pressing questions will be explored and potential solutions debated at the inaugural Association of Independent Insolvency Practitioners (AIIP) Conference to be held next month in Canberra. Questions around safe harbour; pre-packs; litigation funding, law reform and what the future might have in store will all be canvassed at the Disruption in the Insolvency Industry Conference on June 28 and 29…


Palmer ups ante in PwC/PPB Advisory intervention

If Prince Harry and his fiance must endure old man Markle crashing their wedding then why should the highest profile pairing in Australia’s insolvency sector be exempt from intervention? The answer is that it even if it should be it isn’t, as evidenced by the confetti of subpoenas and affidavits filed in the Supreme Court of Queensland this week by lawyers representing one Clive Frederick…


FEG boss promises “big year” after audit office tick

For those in the profession who’ve yet to endure an encounter with the FEG Recovery Unit or are in the middle of a melee with FEG over fees and the like, take heed of the following comment made yesterday by Henry Carr, Director of the Fair Entitlements Guarantee Recovery Team. “I have a great team of experienced accountants and lawyers and with the the support of the industry…


Ides of March toll as appeals fall FEG’s way

In the space of a few weeks in March Australia’s courts have delivered three verdicts that will only embolden the zealous litigators of the Department of Employment’s FEG Recovery Unit, who could hardly have been accused of timidity prior to the fortuitous trifecta of appellant outcomes so recently handed down. The chest thumping would’ve been longest and loudest on Wednesday evening this week after a Full…