BBY liquidator Stephen Vaughan. The brain-contorting complexity of the BBY Limited liquidation is back on display after liquidators Stephen Vaughan and Ian Hall sought to retreat to a simpler regime for the recovery of costs. The simpler regime was first put in place in 2015 by Justice Paul Brereton, who has since fled to the Court of Appeal. At the time the regime was seen…
O’Brien Palmer’s Daniel Frisken. O’Brien Palmer’s Daniel Frisken won’t be the last insolvency practitioner to rue the increasingly intrusive remit of the corporate regulator but the circumstances around how he and OBP partner Liam Bailey came to stand aside as appointees on Urban Couture thanks to the dreaded double might test make for an instructive tale. Frisken was approached about a possible voluntary administrator’s (VA)…
Menzies Advisory’s Michael Caspaney Those construction industry insolvencies seem to have particularly restive committees of inspection (COIs) and it may be that the Walton Construction entities in liquidation fall into this category given the judgment handed down last week. In the matter of Williams & Kersten Pty Ltd ACN 141 894 724 & Anor v Walton Construction (QLD) Pty Ltd (In Liquidation) ACN 100 833…
dVT’s Suelen McCallum. Identifying who will ultimately act as expert solvency witness for Clive Palmer in his defence of claims brought by Queensland Nickel’s (QN) general and special purpose liquidators is turning out to be less straightforward than iNO originally assumed. After reporting last week that Pitcher Partners’ Perth chief Bryan Hughes had been named in the Queensland Supreme Court as Palmer’s preferred nominee to…
Helm Advisory’s Stephen Hathway. Veritas Advisory principal David Iannuzzi. When it rains it pours the saying goes and it’s certainly bucketing down in the vicinity of David Nicholas Iannuzzi. As reported previously, the embattled insolvency practitioner is awaiting a judge’s ruling on orders which could see his registration as a liquidator cancelled. Those orders – to which Iannuzzi has consented – also allow for the…
Pitcher Partners WA chief Bryan Hughes. After an understandably extensive search Clive Palmer has found an insolvency practitioner willing to step into the role of expert witness vacated last month by Peter Dinoris. Dinoris’s voluntarily cancellation of his registration as a liquidator came into effect on June 29, less than two weeks after AFSA announced on June 17 that it had accepted the former Vincents…
Jirsch Sutherland partner Trent Devine. Jirsch Sutherland managing partner Bradd Morelli. The liquidators of FW Projects will be feeling mighty relieved after a judge yesterday threw out an application seeking to replace the Jirsch Sutherland duo on the basis of bias. In dismissing the application of builder Hindmarsh Construction Australia (HCA) NSW Supreme Court Judge Ashley Black found In the matter of FW Projects Pty…
Steve Parbery. Image courtesy Ferrier Hodgson. One of the most significant insolvency related trials in Australian history is set to start on Monday so this week we asked Australia’s richest alleged shadow director: Are you about to settle? All Clive Palmer, the maverick minerals magnate and operator of the joint venture behind the mothballed Yabulu Nickel Refinery in Townsville would say in reply was “ask…
Hall Chadwick’s Blair Pleash. Hall Chadwick’s Richard Albarran. As can be seen from the latest judgment in the Equititrust saga, it can be tough to make the case that litigation funding benefits anyone other than the lawyers, the insolvency practitioners and the funder when creditors collect zeros. That of course is not to suggest litigation funding has no place. Far from it. In unfunded insolvencies…
Deloitte’s Tim Norman: Concerned about adjudication of proofs of debt in Plutus Payroll Australia liquidation. Lawyers for Deloitte duo Tim Norman and Sal Algeri will have to reformulate an application for guidance on how to treat hundreds of workers claiming to be employees of the notorious Plutus Payroll Australia Group (PPA) after a judge said that in its present form the application could imperil workers’…