THE latest accounts for Octaviar Administration (OA) show that Bill Fletcher and Kate Barnett earned almost $370,000.00 in fees in the past six months, taking total remuneration since they were appointed to $23.125 million. The Bentleys’ pair were installed as liquidators of OA and Octaviar Limited (OL) in September 2009 after the Public Trustee of Queensland, acting on behalf of creditors, removed Deloitte’s John Greig and…
THE sparring between litigation funder Bookarelli and its former agent Katanga Developments appears to be drawing to a climax as the two countdown to October 7, when an application by Katanga to wind up Bookarelli is due to be heard in the NSW Supreme Court. But will it get there? On September 17 NSW District Court Judge James Curtis set aside the judgement upon which…
IT’S ironic that litigation funder Bookarelli Pty Ltd is facing potential liquidation, given how profitable its proof-of-debt facilitation sideline appears to have been for the $1 company linked to sometime fraud investigator and Blue Mountains resident Richard Kurland. According to a September 2013 District Court judgement, between 28 June 2011 to 28 March 2012, almost $800,000 was paid into a solicitors’ trust account linked to…
HAVING recently secured a $12.35 million settlement from Fortress Credit Corporation, Octaviar Limited’s (OL) special purpose liquidator is, we are reliably informed, contemplating resurrecting a $515 million proof of debt claim against the liquidators of Octaviar Administration (OA). The NSW Supreme Court made orders on May 26, 2015, discontinuing proceedings first brought by OL’s receivers against Bentleys partners Kate Barnett and Bill Fletcher in 2014….
READ in their entirety, expert witness reports can be turgid affairs. Eye-glazing repetition. Incessant referencing of Acts and Codes. Footnotes even. But when a report’s author is cross-examined in open court and the minutiae of their conclusions surveyed, a more engaging narrative emerges. Barry Raymond Cooke is one such expert. Cooke was engaged by Pankaj Oswal to produce expert witness reports about PPB Advisory’s handling…
ANY insolvency that burns through five liquidators deserves special mention. When tens of millions of dollars – which might have been deployed beefing up creditor dividends – is instead spent pursuing a well-resourced, recalcitrant and foreign domiciled defendant, then the topic which so reliably provokes palpitations must be revisited. Fees and expenses should be kept in the limelight. Like mushrooms, they flourish in the dark….
BANKRUPTCY trustee Max Prentice has won possession of a rambling property in Bunyala Road, Bellevue Hill valued at up to $4 million. On Tuesday, Federal Court Judge Robert Buchanan ordered the large residential home vest with Prentice as trustee for sale. The judge gave the bankrupt, Robert Gilbert Coshott, his wife Ljiljana and their sons James and Michael 42 days to clear out. You can…
Katherine Barnet leaving the Supreme Court Photo: iNO ImagesSUPREME Court Acting Justice Peter Young has spiked the punch at the Octaviar liquidators’ ex-parte party. In a recent judgement the judge criticised liquidators Kate Barnet and Bill Fletcher for a lack of candour, branded Barnet’s performance during cross-examination as “so vague as to be of little value” and rejected the Bentley pair’s attempts to repel interlocutories…
IT was an unusual little meeting at the offices of the Official Trustee in Bankruptcy last month. There were two private trustees present. A third and fourth attended by proxy. And each was vying to take on the trusteeship of the bankrupt estate of Robert Gilbert Coshott. Coshott is a former solicitor who was struck off the roll in 1997. He was bankrupted in 2008…
Being cross-examined can’t be fun for any liquidator and Katherine Barnet won’t feel like the one who dodged the bullet after fronting the NSW Supreme Court yesterday. The insolvency specialist and director at Bentleys Corporate Recovery was brought in to talk about failed property investment group Octaviar. She began by getting confused about which of the two witness boxes to occupy. Perhaps the courtroom atmosphere…