Pitcher Partners‘ mother-of-all public examinations kicked off this week and already two liquidators names have been mentioned in despatches as the marathon inquiry into an alleged $100 million phoenixing scheme gains momentum in room 8B of Melbourne’s Federal Court. Pitcher’s Andrew Yeo and Gess Rambaldi are being funded by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to prise open what may be the largest phoenix syndicate yet uncovered and as part of…
Sometimes the legal advice one lot of liquidators has been relying on isn’t good enough for another lot, particularly when there’s a third lot pushing like hell for a second opinion. Such is the current state of affairs as it pertains to Neolido Holdings, that curious cash cow which earlier this year passed from the control of PPB Advisory’s Grant Sparks to BDO’s Andrew Fielding…
PKF Victoria’s Jason Stone and Glenn Franklin are playing hardball with AG Coombs Pty Ltd after the national mechanical services designer and installer failed to respond in time to statutory demands the PKF pair issued as liquidators of sub-contractor M & V Consultants Pty Ltd. Petrified at what that could mean for a business with 650 employees and annual turnover of $250 million AG Coombs sought an…
Low grade legal advice appears to be why Ozem Kassem and Jason Tang have been ordered to pay the costs of a party with whom they entered into a deed of settlement over a $60,000 vendor finance loan that’s been the focus of an ongoing dispute. In Mahmoud El Ali v JGYM Pty Ltd [2018] NSWSC 1298 (23 August 2018) NSW Supreme Court judge Michael Pembroke this week described…
It was late in 2016 when the Full Bench of the NSW Supreme Court of Appeal sat to hear why one of their own had, in his enthusiasm for applying the concept of proportionality to liquidator’s remuneration, charted a course described that day by the appellant’s counsel as “without juridical basis.” The appellant on that Wednesday in November was Cliff Sanderson, a registered liquidator. The legal…
INO was having coffee with an insolvency practitioner (IP) the other day when the conversation turned to the Industry Funding Model (IFM). Pulling a document from his briefcase the IP showed how the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) had arrived at a sum of almost $20,000 it intends to claim from his modest single liquidator firm when it begins issuing invoices in January, 2019. Confirming that…
It was just before the May 21, 2018 annual meeting of creditors of failed builder SX Projects that incumbent liquidator Geoff Reidy was approached by several individuals wanting a quiet word. Intrigued, Reidy agreed to the impromptu chat with the men, who one of INO’s sources described as being of South Pacific islander appearance. Once away from prying ears and eyes however, it became clear that they weren’t…
BDO partner James White is packing up and heading back to the UK, though our sources assure us a new baby is the reason White wants to be closer to home and his departure from these fair antipodean shores has nothing to do with the Mossgreen fiasco. We’ve yet to hear back from the man himself but yesterday BDO colleague and joint Mossgreen liquidator Andrew…
After advising creditors of Courtenay House Capital in June this year that they would not recommend a settlement offer from Tony Iervasi, it looks like liquidators Said Jahani and John McInerney have extracted something much more favourable. In a July 27, 2018 circular the Grant Thornton duo told creditors that they had signed a deed of settlement with the self-confessed Ponzi scheme operator just a day earlier. “Under the terms…
Sydney liquidator Steve Naidenov has been asked if he knew an insolvency appointment was a phoenix transaction during an at times heated public examination into the affairs of the MK Floors Group. The question, which Naidenov strenuously rejected, came towards the end of the first day of a multi-day examination brought by the Commonwealth’s FEG Recovery Unit. FEG is seeking $1.5 million from Naidenov and Veritas Advisory head…