Robson Cotter principal Roland Robson. A Queensland trustee in bankruptcy who landed a large and complex estate in early 2021 is now fighting to retain the appointment after one unsecured creditor lost patience and commenced proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia seeking orders that the trustee be removed. Whether the creditor’s impatience is justified however is something the court will have to decide. The…
DV Recovery Management’s Daniel O’Brien. When a director dies it’s not necessarily the end of the story. Just ask Melbourne liquidator Peter Goodin. Or the practitioners who replaced him. Or the liquidator who replaced them. This story started with the death in January 2018 of Mr Jun Chen, sole director of Good Home & Property Pty Ltd. By the following year the company had been…
Vincents’ Nick Combis. Merchant Advisory’s Louisa Sijabat. A successful appeal in the Federal Court has left two registered trustees facing a hefty costs order from an unenviable position deep in the hole on their fees. The pair, who’ve been pursuing almost $550,000 they claimed the bankrupt had paid into his superannuation fund to defeat creditors, had opposed the appeal. But the decision handed down this…
SV Partners’ Fabian Micheletto. SV Partners’ Michael Carrafa. Contests about whether privilege has been waived are what life’s all about. Who doesn’t relish a hot war over confidential correspondence that may hold the potential to cause discomfort to those fighting for the right to stay shtum. “Even if the defendants’ submission is accepted as a correct characterisation of the facts, the submission falls well short…
Chris Baskerville of Jirsch Sutherland. Bailments. Security interests. Deeds of settlement and insolvency. It’s a formula liquidator Chris Baskerville has found can leave a bitter aftertaste. So good luck to those currently coming before Labor senator Deb O’Neill and others of her species as they hear submissions as part of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services review of Corporate Insolvency in Australia….
Marcus Watters of Hall Chadwick. Hall Chadwick partner Marcus Watters is seeking to fend off an application for a judicial inquiry into his conduct of the sale process for the Carvers Reach development in Queensland. Court documents reveal that plaintiffs CIP Group, CIP 1 Pyrmont Portfolio and Marc Clancy are seeking orders for an inquiry into various “acts and omissions” they allege were perpetrated by…
PwC’s Andrew Scott. When rival parties propose their own trustees to sell property and there’s not even daylight between the contenders, how’s a judge to decide? The answer lies within Yat Kit Jong and Man Chun So – the Trustees of the Property of Ho Wah Au, a Bankrupt v Chow [2022] NSWSC 1595 which reveals that all things being equal, the plaintiff’s nominee generally…
CRS Warner principal Anthony Warner Insolvency Experts’ principal Steve Kugel. The bitter struggle over a failed partnership that’s pitted two liquidators against each other for seven years is about to go to trial. But based on comments yesterday to the respective antagonists’ lawyers, the judge who’s hearing the matter is thinking beyond case management and conclaves. “There will have to be something done in respect…
Hall Chadwick partner Sule Arnautovic. Dermott McVeigh of Avior Consulting. Back to the drawing board was the message for Avior Consulting’s Dermott McVeigh after a judge refused the Perth-based practitioner’s application for approval of a lift in receivership fees. For Hall Chadwick’s Sule Arnautovic however, who was also in the Corporations List queue on Monday applying for approval of remuneration earned whilst an administrator and…
Deloitte’s Sal Algeri. Deloitte’s Tim Norman. When a judge is told the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) has no objections to an application for access to confidential transcripts and then learns that the application hasn’t been served on the CDPP, it’s a revelation certain to impede rather than hasten an applicant’s progress. So it turned out on Monday this week when lawyers for colourful…