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Judgment

Corporates, Judgment, Liquidations, Liquidators, Litigation 23 May 2018

Pitchers’ Hughes proves stick admissible

A fresh judgment was produced by the Supreme Court of West Australia last week that constitutes a win for Pitcher Partners WA partner and Westgem Investments liquidator Bryan Hughes in his marathon dispute with secured creditor Commonwealth Bank over the date of Westgem’s insolvency. Specifically, the court was asked to decide whether a Quickbooks data file saved to a USB stick constituted “books and records” and was therefore admissible. Initially there’d been been no…

Judgment, Liquidations, Receivership 18 May 2018

Receivers to tackle Mossgreen mess

Insolvent auction houses. Who’d touch one after the mess BDO’s James White, Andrew Sallway and Nick Martin have found themselves in? Grey House Partners, that’s who. In Re Mossgreen Pty Ltd (in liquidation) [2018] VSC 230 (9 May 2018) we learn of a recent attempt to install Greyhouse’s Andrew Beck and Ben Verney as receivers of goods stored in a warehouse in the Victorian suburb of Clayton. From…

Judgment, Liquidators, VA's & DoCA's 9 May 2018

Current liquidators grapple with ex-VAs over liens

Still south of the border we find revealed in a judgement of the Victorian Supreme Court details of a civilised little scrap between Matthew Jess and Nathan Deppeler of Worrells (them again) and Matt Muldoon and Ken Sellers of Sellers Muldoon Benton, over the existence and extent of liens, both statutory and equitable. In the matter of Specialist Australian Security Group Pty Ltd (In Liquidation) (ACN 094 807…

Costs, Fees, Judgment, Liquidators, Litigation, Social/Professional 4 May 2018

SPLs invokes irony in removal defence

Since Clive Palmer applied on the twelfth of April to remove those pesky special purpose liquidators (SPLs) from Queensland Nickel (QN), a Niagara of documentation has been filed. Applications, affidavits, submissions etc. Against this torrent the SPL’s Steve Parbery and Michael Owen of PPB Advisory have filed a truly voluminous reservoir of rebuttals in their defence. SiN’s been wading through the flood. Palmer is arguing…

Judgment, Receivership 20 April 2018

Judge rules receivers best placed to peddle bicycles

In the current climate of applications for leave to appeal to the High Court about decisions relating to trust property, SiN noticed this judgment emanating from South Australian-based Federal Court judge Richard White involving a dispute about bicycles, which affirms administrators’ and liquidators’ rights to claim remuneration and expenses from trust assets. The judge’s ruling came after Tim Clifton and Daniel Lopresti of Clifton Hall were earlier…

Judgment, Liquidations, VA's & DoCA's 18 April 2018

Judge endorses SVP pairs’ view about dodgy DoCA

It’s not often that an administrator’s assessment of a deed of company arrangement (DoCA) is sufficiently bleak for them to recommend creditors ignore the DoCA’s promise and put the company into liquidation. Nor is quite the norm for the creditors to ignore the administrators’ recommendation and wholeheartedly endorse the dubious and doubtful deed. That however is what transpired in the curious matter of Syndicate Forty…

Judgment, Litigation, VA's & DoCA's 18 April 2018

dVT pair forced to confirm validity of appointment

dVT’s Antony Resnick and Dave Solomons have been dragged into a dispute that has led to a challenge to the validity of their appointment as administrators to the Carzapp group of companies connected to self-described entrepreneur Graham Meyerowitz. NSW Supreme Court judge Justice Ashley Black this week heard that the challenge is based on “discreet issues” relating to the companies’ constitutions and whether the appointing director had…

Costs, Judgment, Litigation, VA's & DoCA's 13 April 2018

BDO trio appealing Mossgreen judgment

This afternoon lawyers for BDO partners James White, Andrew Sallway and Nick Martin will return to the Federal Court hoping to reverse the April 9, 2018 judgment of Justice Nye Perram in the matter of Mossgreen Pty Ltd (Administrators Appointed) [2018] FCA 471. Last Monday the judge ruled that the BDO trio – who were appointed administrators of the gallery and auction house on December 21,…

Judgment, Litigation Funding, Receivership 4 April 2018

Judge criticises lit. funders’ “above normal returns”

The Federal Court’s Justice Steven Rares has utilised a receiver’s claim for remuneration to opine less than favourably about the “above normal returns” attracting increasing numbers of hopefuls into the colosseum that is Australia’s litigation funding space. In Australian Executor Trustee Ltd v Provident Capital Ltd [2018] FCA 439 Justice Rares quoted University of New South Wales Professor of Law Michael Legg, who in a recent article determined that…

FEG, Judgment, Lawyers, Liquidations, Liquidators, Regulation/Legislation 23 March 2018

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…