It’d be unfair to suggest that every attempt at resolving the Mossgreen auction house imbroglio has merely driven the hapless imbrogliees deeper into the legal warren excavated by their competing claims, but Federal Court Justice Nye Perram’s latest ruling doesn’t exactly dispel the cynicism. In White, in the matter of Mossgreen Pty Ltd (Administrators Appointed) (No 3) [2018] FCA 711 the reality is laid bare. Four classes of creditor claim…
A fresh judgment was produced by the Supreme Court of West Australia last week that constitutes a win for Pitcher Partners WA partner and Westgem Investments liquidator Bryan Hughes in his marathon dispute with secured creditor Commonwealth Bank over the date of Westgem’s insolvency. Specifically, the court was asked to decide whether a Quickbooks data file saved to a USB stick constituted “books and records” and was therefore admissible. Initially there’d been been no…
If Prince Harry and his fiance must endure old man Markle crashing their wedding then why should the highest profile pairing in Australia’s insolvency sector be exempt from intervention? The answer is that it even if it should be it isn’t, as evidenced by the confetti of subpoenas and affidavits filed in the Supreme Court of Queensland this week by lawyers representing one Clive Frederick…
Earlier this week it was reported that Clive Palmer was seeking to block the sale of PPB Advisory (PPBA) to PwC but our sources report that the initial application for interim freezing orders against PPBA founder Steve Parbery and partner Michael Owen was dismissed late last Friday afternoon and withdrawn before it was due to be heard yesterday. Overnight Palmer – believed to be holidaying in Europe – said…
PwC takeover aside, PPB Advisory cannot get a break. After the alleged villainy of former partner David Leigh was uncovered in February, you’d think the firm could earn some respite from outrageous fortune’s slings and arrows. Negative. This week the firm’s two most senior Queensland partners – Grant Sparks and Michael Owen – were served with a multi-million dollar claim for damages in relation to their…
The second meeting of creditors of failed Victorian builder Project Group Construction on Wednesday afternoon will go down as being notable for two reasons. This was the first attempt by creditor activist Subbies United (SU) to remove incumbent administrators and replace them with its preferred appointee in Victoria, a tactic SU has employed successfully in Queensland on several occasions. The attempt failed, with incumbents Ivan…
Still south of the border we find revealed in a judgement of the Victorian Supreme Court details of a civilised little scrap between Matthew Jess and Nathan Deppeler of Worrells (them again) and Matt Muldoon and Ken Sellers of Sellers Muldoon Benton, over the existence and extent of liens, both statutory and equitable. In the matter of Specialist Australian Security Group Pty Ltd (In Liquidation) (ACN 094 807…
Since Clive Palmer applied on the twelfth of April to remove those pesky special purpose liquidators (SPLs) from Queensland Nickel (QN), a Niagara of documentation has been filed. Applications, affidavits, submissions etc. Against this torrent the SPL’s Steve Parbery and Michael Owen of PPB Advisory have filed a truly voluminous reservoir of rebuttals in their defence. SiN’s been wading through the flood. Palmer is arguing…
You might think as a registered liquidator that when the same director turns up in three liquidations referred to you by the same referrer over the course of a few years, it might be worth going and meeting that director. You might think that such a face-to-face meeting is even more important given the director appears to have been installed only months prior to the…
The much anticipated hearing of the Commissioner of Taxation’s application for a Federal Court inquiry into Sydney liquidator David Iannuzzi commenced this week with his defence team signalling a challenge to the admissibility of the ATO’s evidence. Iannuzzi is facing a multi prong attack from the ATO, which is seeking to have the court inquire into his conduct; an order that he be banned from…