Litigation

Kordas resisting shareholder move on Arrium boss

Squire Patton Boggs’ Amanda Banton. An interesting stoush has broken out between Arrium deed administrators (DAs) KordaMentha and Arrium shareholders seeking to publicly examine former director Colin Galbraith. Back in May a Registrar of the NSW Supreme Court issued an examination summons to Galbraith on the application of two shareholders represented by Amanda Banton from Squire Patton Boggs (SPB). Banton’s involvement indicates there’s likely a…


ATO overlooks own audit during CFC DoCA objections

Balance Insolvency principal Tim Cook. An appeal against a judgment that went the way of FTI Consulting’s John Park and Kelly-Anne Trenfield kicked off in the Federal Court yesterday and there’s plenty to ponder as it pertains to Citadel Finance Corporation (CFC) and its labour hire subsidiary Action Scaffolding & Rigging Pty Limited (AS&R). A financier of its own operating entities, CFC is the appellant…


Solvency reports key in KPMG’s $3.5 mill BBY claim

PCI Partner’s John Melluish. PCI Partners’ John Melluish might soon find himself burning the midnight oil, if such an archaism can still be deployed to describe working long hours, after accepting an 11th hour engagement to prepare solvency reports for tennis legend Ken Rosewall. The octogenarian one time grass court maestro is attempting to fend off efforts to recover almost $3.5 million in payments received…


Expert No. 3 for Palmer after Pitcher’s Hughes opts out

dVT’s Suelen McCallum. Identifying who will ultimately act as expert solvency witness for Clive Palmer in his defence of claims brought by Queensland Nickel’s (QN) general and special purpose liquidators is turning out to be less straightforward than iNO originally assumed. After reporting last week that Pitcher Partners’ Perth chief Bryan Hughes had been named in the Queensland Supreme Court as Palmer’s preferred nominee to…


Pitcher’s partner parachuted in for Palmer

Pitcher Partners WA chief Bryan Hughes. After an understandably extensive search Clive Palmer has found an insolvency practitioner willing to step into the role of expert witness vacated last month by Peter Dinoris. Dinoris’s voluntarily cancellation of his registration as a liquidator came into effect on June 29, less than two weeks after AFSA announced on June 17 that it had accepted the former Vincents…


Another insolvent SPV, another incumbent challenged

Glenn Livingstone. Image courtesy Ferrier Hodgson. In the wake of the NSW Supreme Court’s recent refusal of an application seeking to replace incumbent liquidators comes another such attempt involving a builder feeling bilked by a developer with an insolvent SPV. The practitioner in the middle this time is Adam Farnsworth, who as an aside recently parted company with Adam Shepard to form Farnsworth Carson with…


How hard is it to replace liquidators? This hard.

Jirsch Sutherland partner Trent Devine. Jirsch Sutherland managing partner Bradd Morelli. The liquidators of FW Projects will be feeling mighty relieved after a judge yesterday threw out an application seeking to replace the Jirsch Sutherland duo on the basis of bias. In dismissing the application of builder Hindmarsh Construction Australia (HCA) NSW Supreme Court Judge Ashley Black found In the matter of FW Projects Pty…


Could Dinoris departure trigger Palmer settlement?

Steve Parbery. Image courtesy Ferrier Hodgson. One of the most significant insolvency related trials in Australian history is set to start on Monday so this week we asked Australia’s richest alleged shadow director: Are you about to settle? All Clive Palmer, the maverick minerals magnate and operator of the joint venture behind the mothballed Yabulu Nickel Refinery in Townsville would say in reply was “ask…


SPLs for Forge Group exposes KPMG/Ferriers conflict

McGrathNicol’s Rob Brauer. McGrathNicol’s Rob Kirman. The two Robs, Messrs Kirman and Brauer have been served some work from the Forge Group liquidation courtesy of KPMG’s takeover of Ferrier Hodgson. Last week in the Supreme Court of West Australia, orders were made appointing the McGrathNicol pair special purpose liquidators (SPLs). Those orders were made on the application of Martin Jones and Wayne Rushton, Forge’s general…


Reidy repels accusers but denied indemnity vengeance

Rodgers Reidy director Geoff Reidy. The plaintiff directors of Zamora Homes have dropped their bid to appoint a special purpose liquidator (SPL) to the company and may consider themselves fortunate to have escaped orders that they pay indemnity costs to Geoff Reidy, the incumbent they sought to supplant. At the beginning of a hearing in the NSW Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Ashley Black heard that…