Amid near-zero nightly temperatures and the final parliamentary sitting week before the winter break the inaugural conference of the Association of Independent Insolvency Practitioners (AIIP) commenced yesterday and the mood for change was palpable. Change it seems, is what’s needed, and in the art deco halls of the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra, cases for radical change were put forward. During a Future of Insolvency panel…
Pitcher Partners’ Paul Weston is displaying exceptional optimism as he attempts to prosecute an insolvent trading case without the benefit of books and records of Starcom Group Pty Ltd. Weston was appointed liquidator of Starcom in early 2011 but only launched the $5.5 million claim in early 2017. Since then he’s reached settlements with Starcom’s chief financial officer and its company secretary and, emboldened and…
Whilst one must take care not to assume, it looks as though ex-KordaMentha partner Cliff Rocke and KordaMentha’s John Bumbak have doubled down in getting up officialdom’s nose. It started on June 6 when Rocke went to the Federal Court seeking an order to facilitate his retirement as sole liquidator of three companies to which he’d been appointed before his departure from Kordas in December, 2016. Rocke also asked…
Along with a luminary of the Labor party’s past, Veritas Advisory’s David Iannuzzi and Steve Naidenov have been summoned to appear for public examination in August in relation to the liquidation of the MK Floors Group. Regular INO readers may recall that after Iannuzzi and Naidenov were appointed voluntary administrators (VAs) of the MK Floors Group on October 10, 2016 they had to fend off…
Derrick Vicker’s troubled tenure as liquidator of the Ostwald Brothers construction group is set to come to end, with the PwC partner preparing to make way for John Park and Kelly Anne Trenfield of FTI Consulting on the basis – according to Vickers – of a potential conflict destined to emerge once PwC completes its acquisition of PPB Advisory (PPBA) on August 1. For Vickers,…
Sydney liquidator David Young will have his legal advisors furiously redrafting after a judge yesterday ruled he needed to replead allegations of fraud and claims for compensation he’s seeking to pursue against Sydney accountant Aaron Randell, York Street, Sydney accounting firm Emerson, Randell & Young and the directors of Galtari Pty Ltd. INO makes no suggestion of wrongdoing in relation to the allegations, which are contained…
PPB Advisory’s Chris Hill has saved his firm hundreds of thousands of dollars after successfully opposing an order for a subpoena sought by the directors of Force Corp (in liquidation), and thanks to Justice Fabian Gleeson, Insolvency News Online (INO) can report on the matter in detail. In the matter of Force Corp Pty Ltd (Recs and Mgrs Apptd) (in liq) [2018] NSWSC 896 (15 June 2018) we…
It’s been an eventful few weeks for far north Queensland liquidator and former ARITA member Justin James Cadman. On June 6 ARITA announced that it had expelled him from the association after ARITA’s Professional Conduct Committee ruled that he’d brought the reputation of ARITA and the profession into disrepute. That was Wednesday last week. Two days later he was bankrupted in the Federal Court, we believe following…
Well the results of ASIC’s published notices website and lodgement project’ have been collated and it appears that the vast majority of Australia’s 700 or so registered liquidators scarcely miss a beat when it comes to compliance. In ASIC works to ensure registered liquidators comply with obligations ASIC said the key finding was that: “Registered liquidators are mostly doing the right thing and lodging forms…
It may well come down to differing definitions of what constitutes a partner but however a firm structures itself, almost a third of PPB Advisory (PPBA) partners will no longer enjoy the cache the term confers once their company is formally absorbed into the professional services collectivate of PwC on August 1, 2018. Sources revealed yesterday that while 30 of PPBA’s 33 partners will be moving to PwC,…