Liquidator Anthony Elkerton has secured a crucial win for creditors of Swan Services Pty Limited with a judge finding that the company’s director allowed one of Australia’s largest contract cleaning enterprises to operate whilst insolvent. In the NSW Supreme Court yesterday Justice Ashley Black ruled that neither Swan Services director Robert John Swan or company executive and ex-wife Judith Louise Swan had reasonable grounds to…
PPB Advisory and in particular Melbourne partner Craig Crosbie have copped some trenchant criticism in the judgment of Hastie Group Limited (In Liquidation) v Moore [2016] NSWSC 1682, delivered on Wednesday by NSW Supreme Court Justice Michael Ball. “… just wrong…”, “… no or very limited work …” and ” .. delayed unreasonably …” conveyed the general tenor of the judge’s reasons, made more withering by the…
Getting between an ex-wife and a multi-million dollar property in Pyrmont has not turned out well for Veritas Advisory’s Louise Thomson. In a recent judgment of the Federal Court Justice Kathleen Farrell detailed how Thomson, as trustee of the bankrupt estate of Leslie James Young, was certain to be replaced by Jirsch Sutherland’s Stewart Free. What seems to have seriously aggravated Mr Young’s ex-wife and principal…
As counter-intuitive as it is, SiN will ignore the galling irony of six senior counsel each racking up $5000.00 or more a day to instead report on what caused this lavishly remunerated lot to be assembled. A hearing in the NSW Supreme Court of Appeal is what, specifically proceedings brought by Dissolve principal Cliff Sanderson after he took such exception to having his claim for $43,000 in remuneration…
Justice Paul Brereton has said that he found it “surprising” dVT’s Riad Tayeh recommended a company that wasn’t trading and whose only creditors were its shareholders and a related party, be wound up in a recent judgment. Tayeh has told SiN his honour was not wholly appraised of the relevant circumstances. In the matter of Classic Corporation Pty Ltd the judge was asked to rule on…
Fuming? Well perhaps not quite. Disappointed? Definitely. The three FTI Consulting partners acting as liquidators of civil construction firm Akron Roads came very close to cracking open CGU recently, though ultimately a court found the insurer not liable to indemnify the company’s former business advisers. The decision – handed down on November 11 in the Supreme Court of Victoria – means FTI’s Ross Blakeley, Michael Ryan and…
By two to one the eminences of the NSW Supreme Court of Appeal have given the nod to Hastie Group liquidators PPB as they battle to keep secret the contents of a report produced by audit expert Chris Westworth. The report is central to a deal inked with the Maurice Blackburn-backed Claims Funding Australia (CFA) that is bankrolling PPB’s pursuit of professional negligence claims against Hastie’s former auditors,…
Ferrier Hodgson partners John Lindholm and George Georges are facing genuine challenges as deed administrators of two entities from the disgraced Victorian education provider Australian Careers Network (ACN) and one of the most significant crystallised last week. Lindholm and Georges have been arguing since shortly after their appointment as voluntary administrators to ACN Group in March that proceedings first brought against group entities Phoenix Institute of Australia…
In a week when we’ve seen a Victorian liquidator suspended for three years for ignoring conflicts of interest, a judgment has emerged demonstrating that a conflict doesn’t have to be a bar to a liquidator maintaining appointments even when the conflict ensures fees get paid. In the matter of CAL Consulting Pty Ltd (in liq) v CAL Consulting Pty Ltd (in liq) Justice Jayne Jagot…
It was a deed of company arrangement (DoCA) that seemed to offer unsecured creditors little. At the same time it offered the deed administrators much. But first the imminent liquidation of failed builder Denham Constructions had to be stopped. The day before the application to wind up Denham was to be heard before the NSW Supreme Court’s Justice Ashley Black, a secured creditor moved. 5G…