SiN readers will recall the retribution that was wrought upon Grant Thornton last year when four of its partners had the temerity to accept appointments as voluntary administrators of Arrium. The big four – unsecured all – weren’t going to let the Arrium board select its preferred appointees. Westpac’s credit nabob Gwyn Morgan blew a piston before withdrawing half a dozen or so receiverships from GT’s restructuring…
Insolvencies involving incorporated associations are always a bit different but the case of St Gregory’s Armenian School Inc is a standout. Rod Sutherland, the now retired co-founder of Jirsch Sutherland, was appointed liquidator of the association in June 2010 after six of the school’s teachers said they hadn’t been paid and initiated a winding up. Lender the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) realised about $7 million from the…
FTI’s John Park and his former colleague Ginette Muller are still trying to wipe off some of the opprobrium that attached itself to them after an August 2013 decision containing uncomplimentary remarks about their handling of the administration of LM Investment Management Ltd (LMIM), responsible entity for the LM First Mortgage Income Fund (FMIF). The remarks were made in proceedings which among other things saw BDO’s…
It’s the fight they had to have before the fight they’re about to have. In one corner of both the undercard and the main event are Deloitte’s Neil Cussen and David Mansfield, liquidators and receivers of various entities within the Patinack Farm Holdings group once controlled by bankrupt asset trader, Nathan Tinkler. The pair are pitted in both bouts against the Commissioner of Taxation (CoT), who wants to muscle in…
Pitt Street liquidator Jamieson Louttit has avoided the full wrath of an adverse order – kind of – after a judge ruled that indemnity costs should not be applied to two days spent hearing an application launched in April against Louttit by the king of encaffeination, Les Schirato. In a judgment handed down last week NSW Supreme Court judge Ashley Black signalled that Schirato – in his capacity as director…
It didn’t require a psychic to foretell that BBY’s diverse bunch of creditors might at some point tire of the court-imposed regime for assessing the liquidators’ mounting fees and look to summon forth their own mechanism of restraint. A sign of that came on Monday in the NSW Supreme Court when legal representatives for the liquidators and BBY’s various classes of former clients and creditors –…
Anthony Elkerton and Ron Dean-Willcocks have had to source litigation funding from members of the troubled South Head & District Synagogue (Sydney) as they grapple with the prickly issue of how to deal with the Synagogue’s Rabbi, whose employment they failed to terminate after being appointed administrators on April 26, 2017. In Elkerton, in the matter of South Head & District Synagogue (Sydney) (In Liq) [2017] FCA 1206 Justice…
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…