Liquidator Gavin Moss. Photo: iNO Images A recent decision out of the NSW Supreme Court shows how liquidators using the same lawyer who acts for creditors or the liquidator’s funder can quell conflict concerns. In this case Chifley Advisory principal Gavin Moss had to defend himself from allegations of multiple conflict-related breaches of duty by Ian Dresner, the director of churrasco operator Fogo Brazilia Holdings…
Morton + Lee Insolvency’s Gavin Morton. No practitioner likes being replaced just when the labour of administration looks set to moderate courtesy of a deed proposal but unsecureds can be restive beasts, particularly when they are the ATO. Last month it was the turn of Queensland liquidator Gavin Morton to test the Commonwealth debt collector’s patience in relation to a Deed of Company Arrangement (DoCA)…
WLP Restructuring’s Glenn Livingstone. Hall Chadwick partner Sule Arnautovic. Coming before a judge with an incompletely charted special purpose liquidator (SPL) application must be considered to be a fraught exercise. But when the aspiring SPL’s proposed funder also demands an ogre-sized serving of any proceeds of litigation well, why bother incurring the filing fee? In this case those applicants – Philip King’s Rockgold Holdings and…
Aston Chace Group partner Ian Niccol. When you pitch a fee estimate of $50,000 for a liquidation and a few years later ask a judge to approve more than three times more you can be sure questions will be asked about such an underestimate. For the NSW Supreme Court’s chief judge in equity David Hammerschlag, several questions occurred when the remuneration application in the matter…
I&R Advisory partner David Ross. Hall Chadwick partner Blair Pleash. There’s admirable persistence and then there’s futile pursuit. iNO would not presume to opine on where the line between the two lies and in fact, armed with the recent judgment of Ross (Liquidator) in the matter of Print Mail Logistics (International) Pty Ltd (In Liq) v Elias [2022] FCA 296, speculation is unnecessary. The judgement,…
Pitcher Partners’ Andrew Yeo. Victorian liquidator Ross McDermott. It’s been some time but the wearisome tale of Lonnex, a company connected to the late Dr Geoffrey Edelstein, could be at an end after Pitcher Partners’ Andrew Yeo obtained court approval for a deal that ends the ongoing scrap between major creditor the ATO and Lonnex’s former liquidators. Details of this dispute’s seeming resolution were delivered…
Hall Chadwick partner Sule Arnautovic. WLP Restructuring’s Glenn Livingstone. Another wholly uncelestial body is being positioned to take up orbit around the Jabiru Satellite and Newsat administrations with proceedings commenced in the NSW Supreme Court this month to appoint Hall Chadwick partner Sule Arnautovic as special purpose liquidator (SPL). On Monday the applicant’s counsel David Sulan SC told Justice Ashley Black that Jabiru and NewSat…
SV Partners Perth Director Malcolm Field. One creditor wanted his proof of debt admitted in full. The liquidator admitted it in part. The rival creditor wanted it rejected completely. What judge wouldn’t invoke the Goldilocks premise? In this case the judicial eminence so moved was the Supreme Court of West Australia’s Master Craig Sanderson. His honour had been called upon to resolve a dispute between…
Inevitably, measures implemented to cope with COVID 19 lockdowns would generate consequences unforeseen but few could have predicted that an initiative intended to preserve jobs would lead to a judge slashing a liquidator’s fees. That however is precisely what’s happened to Jirsch Sutherland managing partner Bradd Morelli, who saw his claim for almost $25,000 in remuneration lopped by $10,000 after a judge ruled that by…
Hall Chadwick’s Richard Lawrence. PKF’s Paul Allen. When liquidators get punted by creditors who then block payment of their unpaid fees, you know that the change of appointees represents not so much an end but a beginning. For Hall Chadwick’s Richard Albarran and Richard Lawrence, their role switched to that of the out-of-pocket ex-liquidators of Tauro Capital at a meeting of the company’s creditors on…