Liquidators

Liquidators can act as surgeon and undertaker: Judge

Whilst it might seem difficult to envisage how the appearance of independence can be maintained by insolvency practitioners acting as both surgeon and undertaker, Justice Paul McKerracher illuminates the way to envisagement. In Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Diploma Group Limited (No 5) [2017] FCA 1147  his honour last week granted leave to David Hodgson and Andrew Hewitt to enable the Grant Thornton partners to appoint themselves as administrators of…


Tax scam highlights risk in insolvency’s referral ritual

A report about two elderly Australians losing their house after spending more than $100,000 on advice from a company accused of operating a multi-million dollar tax evasion scheme highlights the risks inherent in the practice of referral. Queensland fruit and vegetable peddlers Tony and Doris Di Blasio operated the Crisp on Creek fruit and veg business in Mount Gravatt in Queensland but ran into trouble meeting…


QN liquidator insulated from incendiary affidavit

Liquidator shrugs off tycoon’s affidavit tirade

It’s not every insolvency practitioner who’s accused of connivance in a conspiracy so grand that the federal executive lies at its heart but for John Park, it’s not just fake news, it’s not even new. Where do I start,?” Park said yesterday when SiN rang to discuss the latest incendiary affidavit authored by former member of parliament and owner of the Yabulu Nickel Refinery, Clive Palmer. “Every…


Octaviar liquidators still at odds despite KPMG deal

It seems the settlement that Octaviar’s liquidators extracted from KPMG in 2016 – with the help of a litigation funder – hasn’t quelled this tortured liquidation’s capacity to infect parties involved with discontent, rancour and litigious intent whilst simultaneously delivering millions in fees to the appointees and their advisers. KPMG settled a class action with unit holders in Octaviar’s Premium Income Fund (PIM) in 2015 and the…


Exit plan awry after judge dismisses entirety of liquidator's case

Judge unconvinced by SA liquidator’s exit plan

The demolition of the liquidator’s exit plan could not have been more sweeping or complete. In 500 plus paragraphs delivered on Monday, Justice Greg Parker of the Supreme Court of South Australia dismissed every argument of Adelaide liquidator Nick Orfanos in a battle commenced a decade ago. Orfanos, accountant Michael Michaels and Willem (Bill) Ouwens, who as well as being an accountant is the Honorary Consul for the…


unwanted and ousted - Veritas Advisory

Phoenix buster representing DCoT as Iannuzzi ousted

When you use your casting vote to defy the wants of the largest creditor and that creditor is the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (DCoT), expect blowback. In the case of Veritas Advisory principal David Iannuzzi, the blowback manifested in him being ousted from an appointment yesterday. According to orders made in the Federal Court Iannuzzi has resigned, by consent and without admission, as court-appointed liquidator of North…


spite allegation in byWily defence team

“element of spite” in ASIC’s bid to rub out Wily

The barrister defending controversial ex-liquidator Andrew Wily against ASIC’s call for a judicial inquiry didn’t hold back yesterday. “There’s an element of spite about this,” barrister Ian Jackman SC told presiding Judge Paul Brereton as he sought to undermine ASIC’s case. “They want public censure,” he said. Jackman’s allegation of a spite motivation was part of a bid to demonstrate why the regulator’s application for a…


Court backs hourly-based claim, slams ILRA transition

When the planets align, the wind blows fair and the detail is both accurate and abundant, the dispensers of justice are happy to approve liquidator remuneration claims on the basis of hourly rates without recourse to the inherently fee-reductive principles of proportionality. In the latest instalment in the growing genre of judgments spawned by Sakr Nominees Pty Limited [2017] NSWSC 668 Ferrier Hodgson partner George Georges has…


Office of State Revenue staff erroneously made company a corporate trustee

Office of State Revenue error forced Cussen to court

There’s nothing like a howler in official government documentation – in this instance from the NSW Office of State Revenue – to disrupt the straightforward process of asset disposal, as Deloitte’s Neil Cussen learned in the curious case of Zerren Pty Ltd. Cussen was appointed liquidator of Zerren in June 2014 following an application by the Chief Commissioner of State Revenue to wind up the…


Was it Worrells duo’s ‘inadvertence’, or ASIC’s?

Worrells pair Nathan Deppeler and Nick Cooper have at last put their brief stint as unwittingly unregistered liquidators behind them and Federal Court Judge David O’Callaghan has disclosed in his recently published reasons the difficulties in hearing an application from the pair when they were technically unregistered. As Justice O’Callaghan pointed out in his opening, “Their registrations as liquidators expired earlier this year because, through inadvertence,…