A messy little stoush between two registered training organisations that began before Blair Pleash and Kathleen Vouris were appointed liquidators of Get Qualified Australia has concluded with the Hall Chadwick pair spared an order that they pay thousands of dollars in legal fees personally. But in so finding, Federal Court judge Brigitte Markovic was moved to remark on their conduct. “While I have not found…
With final submissions to the Department of Employment’s Reforms to address corporate misuse of the Fair Entitlements Guarantee (FEG) Scheme discussion paper due today, SiN thought it appropriate to revisit the tooth and nail struggle in which Sydney liquidator Jamieson Louttit has been engaged since receiving a $500,000 claim from the Department’s FEG Recovery Unit. The FEG recovery team are of the view that appointees are…
The Federal Court has a delivered a wide ranging judgment on the disposal of trust assets by liquidators and receiver/managers that will have the Department of Employment’s FEG recovery unit abuzz as it prepares its appeal to the decision of Amerind Pty Ltd (receivers and managers apptd) (in liq) [2017] VSC 127 (23 March 2017). In Kite v Mooney, in the matter of Mooney’s Contractors Pty…
The Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (DCoT) has moved swiftly to take control of multiple insolvent entities connected to the alleged $130 million Plutus Payroll fraud and Deloitte partners Eddie Senatore, Tim Norman and Sal Algeri have scooped up what’s likely to be some very securely funded roles as provisional liquidators. On June 6 in the NSW Supreme Court DCoT intervened in a number of winding up…
PPB Advisory’s Craig Crosbie and his fellow Hastie Group liquidators seem to be fighting a losing battle in their bid to generate recoveries for the creditors of the failed construction firm, and by creditors SiN means Hastie’s banks, they being the only parties with a hope of winning a decent drink from litigation that over the last five years has come to resemble trench warfare. Crosbie is…
RSM Australia partner David Kerr is the latest practitioner to learn that a truly painstaking accounting of the nature of work done, why it was done, why staff of certain seniority were allocated to do it and a detailed justification of the hours spent are the new normal for insolvency professionals seeking fee approval from the courts. In the matter of Hunter Valley Dental Surgery Pty…
PwC’s Sam Marsden and Derrick Vickers look to have wangled a result from the West Australian Supreme Court in their fight with receivers over a deed fund surplus on the Pluton Resources job. In November last year the pair – in their capacity as Pluton’s liquidators – applied for orders relating to the question of Pluton’s entitlement to $835,021.94, left in a deed fund following…
The process may have been akin to pulling teeth with an auditor present but liquidator Cliff Sanderson has at last obtained court approval for his final fees in the painful winding up of Sakr Nominees. NSW Supreme Court Justice Ashley Black on Monday ruled in favour of Sanderson’s claim for an additional $63,577.80c in fees including GST for the period from November 3 2014 to November…
In the same month that the Federal Government released a consultation paper seeking input on ways to reduce FEG fraud, a jury in the Victorian County Court has found a suspended liquidator not guilty on 15 charges of attempting to con payments out of the scheme using false employee records. The trial of Victorian Andrew Leonard Dunner, who in 2013 had his liquidator’s registration suspended…
The four FTI Consulting partners managing the liquidation of Queensland Nickel have had a tidy win in the Supreme Court of Queensland after applying to extend an interlocutory application preventing Domenic Martino and China First Pty Ltd from interfering in the various proceedings the liquidators have on foot against interests associated with QNI’s ultimate owner, Clive Palmer. The FTI four are suing Palmer’s Mineralogy for…