Wexted Advisors partner Andrew McCabe. Wexted Advisors founder and principal Joe Hayes. Wexted Advisors’ Andrew McCabe knew he was in a difficult position back in January when he came to chair the second meeting of creditors of the Comlek Group. As the largest single creditor with a claim in excess of $9 million the Queensland Revenue Office (QRO) had already made it clear to McCabe…
Hall Chadwick’s Richard Albarran. Barrister Geoff McDonald. Richard Albarran wasn’t going to let being a defendant in a marathon legal battle get in the way of attending this year’s INSOL event, particularly when the conference’s location in Tokyo meant that the Hall Chadwick Sydney partner would be in a convenient time zone when it came time to be questioned. That turn came yesterday when the…
Exonerated: Liquidator Jason Bettles. Queensland liquidator Jason Bettles might have been naive but he was never complicit. That’s the conclusion of Federal Court judge Brigitte Markovic who in delivering judgment in Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Bettles [2023] FCA 975 has written another chapter in the burgeoning Apocrypha of failed litigation commenced by the corporate regulator. “A review of his evidence and the way…
The latest judgment to surface from the stew of litigation between the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (DCoT) and those behind gold refiner Pallion Group reveals that a lone liquidator has been adroitly walking the perception-of-conflict tightrope since 2017. “It was not necessary for the Court to form a view that the liquidator is, or will likely be, in a position of conflict. Rather, it was sufficient that an appearance of conflict exists sufficient…
Jones Partners consultant Alan Topp. Coming before certain judges with less than fulsome explanations as to why fees and costs are justified is a zero sum game, as certain parties found out when NSW Supreme court judge Ashley Black was asked to rule on a dispute over amounts to be deducted from the proceeds of sale of land in Sydney’s west. “I do not accept…
O’Brien Palmer’s Liam Bailey. Hogan Sprowles Michael Hogan. A certain Sydney insolvency practitioner must be rueing the day he agreed to introduce Scott Keith McCorkell to a business valuer. Or is the day the liquidator’s referrer introduced him to the Mosman ad man the penultimate moment of regret? ” … while the BSA “appears to be “supported” by the Valuation …. there are a number…
Lowe Lippmann partner Gideon Rathner If a full bench of the Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that creditors were misled, it’s a fair bet that when the costs of the resultant litigation come to be determined, indemnities will be endangered. In circumstances were that same full bench also found that the architects of the creditors’ nescience were less than forthcoming in submissions to the…
Hamilton Murphy partner Stephen Dixon. Steve Dixon must be considering his options after a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria refused the Hamilton Murphy partner’s application for orders declaring a mortgage invalid. In Dixon (as trustee of the bankrupt estate of Toufic Sassine) v Lennon & Anor [2023] VSC 426 Associate Justice Matthew Barrett concluded – having spent eight months deliberating – that he…
McGrathNicol’s Rob Brauer. Hall Chadwick’s Richard Albarran. Insolvency practitioners at Hall Chadwick are enmeshed in at least two fee fights at present and the common denominator in both is Sydney practice head Richard Albarran. iNO readers will be familiar with the travails being experienced by Albarran and outgoing Melbourne partner Richard Lawrence in respect of work they did on Tauro Capital (Tauro), an appointment they…
Grant Thornton’s Phil Campbell-Wilson. Worrells’ Christopher Darin. For some time two sets of practitioners have been tooing and frooing in respect of $20 million, claimed by one lot of liquidators in a winding up administered by another lot. Schemes of arrangement have been proposed then abandoned. Deeds of company arrangement (DoCA) likewise, and in the absence of a resolution from either of these trusted mechanisms,…