David Ingram has left Hall Chadwick to launch I&R Advisory. Liquidator David Ross will join David Ingram in 2022. Former Hall Chadwick partner David Ingram had obviously been plotting his exit from the national mid-tier for some time before his decision to pull the pin was revealed publicly in orders made in the Federal Court on Monday. In the wake of an application pursuant to…
Worrells partner Jason Bettles. Editor’s Note: On Friday, August 18, 2023 Justice Brigitte Markovic of the Federal Court of Australia dismissed ASIC’s case against liquidator Jason Bettles and ordered the regulator to pay Bettles’ costs. Barring settlement at mediation or ASIC’s case collapsing for want of competence the next 18 months represents a period of nagging uncertainty for Jason Bettles. Orders made in the Federal…
KPMG’s Andrew Smith. KPMG’s Martin Jones. ASIC’s record of litigation against registered liquidators continues to resist improvement, with a judge yesterday labelling the regulator’s bid to induce him to slash the fees of two voluntary administrators (VAs) as “unprincipled” and “wholly pointless”. “It was never viable to differentiate work that was said to be ‘tainted’, from work said not to be. If it is ASIC’s…
Savants’ Adrian Duncan. Adrian Duncan, the registered liquidator and a key investor in the failed 2005 bid to list Knights Insolvency Administration on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is rumoured to have left Britain for South America after the UK regulator stripped him of his license and his firm Savants Restructuring was placed in administration. Three years after the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England…
BCR Advisory’s John Morgan. Sydney liquidator John Morgan copped the treatment in the Federal Court witness box yesterday as a three day hearing kicked off to determine if a company he de-registered more than three years ago should be reinstated. If Morgan’s application succeeds and the BCR Advisory principal is also rewarded with the pooling order he seeks then FEG Recoveries will bankroll the commencement…
Resigned. Ex- Jirsch Sutherland partner Daniel Civil. Among the litter of fledgling new insolvency firms that have been spawned during this pandemic period, there have also been – inevitably – departures. The grass always looks greener when you’re standing on scorched earth. In recent weeks national mid-tier Jirsch Sutherland has lost two senior operatives with the departures of chief operating officer Gareth Gammon and long…
Hall Chadwick partner Blair Pleash. When you’re being funded to pursue litigation, it’s not difficult to double down and appeal after a stinging loss. For Hall Chadwick partner Blair Pleash, trying to cajole a ceasefire from the bowels of defeat has meant being bitten twice in a month after the Federal Court of Appeal last week dismissed his bid to overturn a ruling rejecting his…
Greyhouse Partners’ Ben Verney. Commercial judgment appears to have won out in respect of a dispute over the fees of a former voluntary administrator (VA) who refused to comply with a costs order while his remuneration remained unapproved. The recently resolved stand off involved Greyhouse Partners Ben Verney, who was formerly voluntary administrator (VA) of Icon Construction Australia (NSW) Pty Ltd (ICA NSW), the company’s…
Hall Chadwick’s Ginette Muller. Marcus Watters of Hall Chadwick. Persuading a court to extend the deadline by which time you must commence proceedings can be a hard slog, particularly when your unfunded predecessors found nothing to see. Such however have been the travails recently endured by Jirsch Sutherland Brisbane partner Chris Baskerville and thoughtfully catalogued by Queensland Supreme Court judge Glen Martin in Baskerville v…
Liquidator Moira Carter. When your funder is the major creditor by an insurmountable majority and wants you to use its preferred lawfirm, well, what’re you going to do? Particularly when your funder is that model of decorum in litigation, the Commonwealth. For one North Queensland liquidator, this scenario has armed enemies who are not only seeking to remove her but also want the Commonwealth’s proof…