In the past six months liquidator Jamieson Louttit has been involved in an untidy scrap with coffee bean counter extraordinaire Les Schirato. That dispute is set to come to a head this morning when Louttit’s lawyers attempt to prevent an order being made against their client for indemnity costs. Based on the comments of Justice Ashley Black In the matter of S.C.W. Pty Ltd [2017] NSWSC…
If you thought that the liquidation of the Octaviar group is cursed given the the welter of dispute and litigation that has dogged this administration since the original liquidators were replaced back in 2009, then you are of course forgiven. Nor would you be admonished if you expressed no surprise whatsoever on learning that the incumbent liquidators are currently locked deep in a dispute with…
Whilst it might seem difficult to envisage how the appearance of independence can be maintained by insolvency practitioners acting as both surgeon and undertaker, Justice Paul McKerracher illuminates the way to envisagement. In Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Diploma Group Limited (No 5) [2017] FCA 1147 his honour last week granted leave to David Hodgson and Andrew Hewitt to enable the Grant Thornton partners to appoint themselves as administrators of…
The issue of receivers’ fees and expenses is endlessly vexed it seems. In the Supreme Court of Victoria’s court of appeal this week judgment was delivered in relation to a lengthy battle fought between Hall Chadwick’s David Ross and Richard Albarran and their appointor. The pair were appointed receivers of Action Cycles in July 2011 by Gippsreal Ltd under a deed of appointment and indemnity which…
Is Asden Developments the insolvency equivalent of an A-bomb? Its ex-director and her advisor were bankrupted, its first liquidator was admonished by the courts, and when the second liquidator tried to turn his predecessor’s humiliation into recoveries and fees, he lost. That was the initial fallout after Asden was placed into liquidation by its director back in late 2010. Now it seems even parties somewhat removed…
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…
The hearing into the adequacy of the disclosures contained in KordaMentha’s much-maligned report to the creditors of TEN Network Holdings (TNH) was always going to be run with extreme diligence by Supreme Court Justice Ashley Black. This is not only because SiN suspects that Justice Black conducts every hearing with extreme diligence but because TNH creditors are scheduled to vote on a momentous resolution to…
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…
When the planets align, the wind blows fair and the detail is both accurate and abundant, the dispensers of justice are happy to approve liquidator remuneration claims on the basis of hourly rates without recourse to the inherently fee-reductive principles of proportionality. In the latest instalment in the growing genre of judgments spawned by Sakr Nominees Pty Limited [2017] NSWSC 668 Ferrier Hodgson partner George Georges has…
Ex-bankrupt Robert Coshott and his wife Ljiljana Coshott have failed in their attempts to challenge fees and remuneration payable to Nick Crouch and Shabnam Amirbeaggi, who were appointed trustees for the sale of a Bellevue Hill property held jointly by Mrs Coshott and her husband’s former trustee in bankruptcy, Max Prentice. Rubbing salt into the failure, the three judges of the Federal Court of Appeal ordered that…