Savants Adrian Duncan. The relative difference in rates of insolvency appointments between the UK and Australia has been starkly illustrated in a NSW Supreme Court judgment involving one of the founders of failed share market hopeful Knights Insolvency Administration. UK based chartered accountant Adrian Duncan was one of two vendors who took the doomed Knights insolvency model to investors back when the irrational exuberance of…
SV Partners’ Darren Vardy. SV Partners director Darren Vardy is neck deep in a stoush with Chubb Insurance Australia Limited over the question of whether a man who was sole director, sole shareholder and lone company secretary of All Class Insurance Brokers was an employee. If he wasn’t that means the more than $2 million sole director Leroy Bowmaker took from All Class’s trust account…
CRS Warner principal Anthony Warner Insolvency Experts’ principal Steve Kugel. Sydney liquidator Anthony Warner has had a partial but important win this week in his marathon dust up with former business partner and liquidator Steve Kugel. In Warner Capital Pty Ltd v Shazbot Pty Ltd [2020] NSWCA 121 three judges of the NSW Supreme Court’s Court of Appeal on Wednesday overturned the decision of Justice…
Chifley Advisory’s Gavin Moss Chifley Advisory’s Gavin Moss is grappling with a bout of FOBBO (Fear of being booted out) after his appointor commenced proceedings to have him removed. Moss and former Chifley colleague Henry Kwok (now at Pathway Insolvency and Advisory) were appointed voluntary administrators (VAs) of FOGO Brazilia Franchise Holdings (FBFH) in early 2018 by director and Rebel Sports co-founder Ian Dresner. The…
KPMG’s Peter Gothard. Whilst the real pain of Wednesday’s judgment in Parbery & Ors v QNI Metals Pty Ltd & Ors [2020] QSC 143 will be felt by QNI’s general purpose liquidators (GPL) FTI Holdings, Queensland Supreme Court judge Debra Mullins didn’t pull any punches when it came to a couple of elements of the testimony of KPMG partner Peter Gothard. Gothard had been brought…
Cor Cordis Melbourne partner Bruno Secatore. The 28 plus year long liquidation of Last Lap Pty Ltd makes one wonder just how many insolvency practitioners will get to take a lap around this seemingly eternal liquidation, but for the moment we’ll focus on the incumbent, Bruno Secatore. Last week the Federal Court handed down its decision in Secatore, in the matter of Last Lap Pty…
Duff & Phelps’ Marcus Ayres. BDO’s Andrew Sallway. It’s not quite a choses in action at 10 paces but a receiver and a liquidator have agreed that no debt proof adjudication will resolve this particular brouhaha. The dispute involves related entities Business Finance Pty Ltd and Partner Invest, which the NSW Supreme Court yesterday heard were in the non-bank lending space. “… he is a…
KPMG’s Peter Gothard. KPMG’s Peter Gothard has helped push a court to explicitly define the powers of liquidators in respect of claims of legal professional privilege and the outcome will not have pleased the non-executive directors (NEDs) of failed education provider Vocation Limited. In Whittenbury v Vocation Limited (No 2) [2020] FCA 653 Federal Court judge John Middleton last week ruled that Vocation’s NEDs have…
dVT’s David Solomons dVT’s Riad Tayeh Stat demands, divorcees and former business partners now rivals in the Northern Territory’s child care sector? The question here is what could possibly go right. Sydney liquidators David Solomons and Riad Tayeh might well be wondering the same, after a Judge of the Queensland Supreme Court found that liquidators don’t have to have acted unreasonably before they can be…
Liquidator Schon Condon. When you’re down it’s harder to dodge the blows, and that’s an adage to which Sydney liquidator Schon Condon can well attest after copping his second personal costs order in less than two months. On Monday Federal Court judge Jane Jagot ordered Condon to pay from his own pocket the costs of KordaMentha’s Rahul Goyal and Jennifer Nettleton, who had brought an…