PwC’s Simon Theobald PwC’s Robert Ditrich. You might have thought that when Perth-based litigation funder GT Capital Partners imploded last year with its founders exchanging aspersions at 10 paces, whoever was appointed to clean up the mess would have their work cut out for them. Well as it turns out, a DoCA’s been effectuated, new directors have taken over and the Supreme Court of West…
CRS Warner principal Anthony Warner Steve Kugel of The Insolvency Experts. The seemingly endless wrangling over money owing by one insolvency practice partner to his former practice partner might actually be reaching a conclusion eight years after the pair split, with a NSW Supreme Court judge yesterday ruling on the final issues in dispute. “The defendants ask me to accept that, faced with the need…
Insolvency marked another milestone last week when former Ferrier Hodgson partner Gary Trevor completed the torturous winding up of Bell Group NV (BGNV) almost three decades after being appointed liquidator by Australian courts of an administration ancillary to its parent insolvency in the Caribbean jurisdiction of what was then the Netherlands Antilles. In the Supreme Court of West Australia the Perth insolvency veteran obtained orders…
McGrathNicol partner Keith Crawford. McGrathNicol partner Matthew Caddy. Proceedings in the Federal Court yesterday aptly demonstrated the dangers insolvency practitioners face when accepting appointments as administrators in the middle of intractable shareholder disputes. At a hearing before Federal Court judge Tim McEvoy in Melbourne, counsel for the administrators of Agrifunder Holdings Pty Ltd appeared seeking approval for Agrifunder to enter into a deed of refinance…
O’Brien Palmer’s Liam Bailey. Hall Chadwick’s John Shanahan. When you’re on a bad thing abort is the message that one Sydney trustee didn’t get soon enough to prevent the unnecessary enrichment of lawyers. The trustee, after refusing to accede to the wishes of the majority debt holder by resigning, marshalled his defences when the dominant creditor commenced proceedings to have him removed. As valid as…
IRT Advisory’s Andrew Poulter. Following publication of lurid details involving sham arrangements, straw directors and shadowy puppet masters, iNO asked the liquidator responsible for uncovering the imbroglio if he’d reported his findings to ASIC. As it turns out, he had. IRT Advisory’s Andrew Poulter lodged a section 533(1) report with ASIC in January 2018 in respect of what smelled like the liquidation of convenience of…
Hamilton Murphy partner Trent Hancock. Liquidators with no funding will be relieved to learn that entering into a contract to assign a chose in action is not invalidated simply because it’s the assignee applying for court approval rather than the liquidator. The question came before NSW Supreme Court Corporations judge Ashley Black yesterday after two parties turned up seeking leave to be heard in opposition…
SV Partners’ David Stimpson. We hope David Stimpson felt some relief this week when the Queensland Court of Appeal delivered judgment in the matter of Allied Rural Pty Ltd v Stimpson [2023] QCA 77. The SV Partners executive director deserves closure after being drawn into a ghastly dispute between rival members of Allied Rural which saw Stimpson appointed administrator by the then sole director on…
BRI Ferrier partner Peter Krejci. “Transcript! I must have transcript,” the appeals court president might well have thundered. When appellant court judges are delivered a white book unfit for a dog’s breakfast and receive material in their chambers on the morning of the hearing that hasn’t been served on the respondent well, tempest can be reliably forecast. And inevitably in such circumstances, a bench’s collective…
Hogan Sprowles Brendan Copeland. Hogan Sprowles Michael Hogan. To defend or to not defend? It’s a question insolvency practitioners accept as part of their general lot, one in which the correct answer frequently reveals itself only after the benefits of hindsight have crystallised in full. On Monday this week a court heard that the deed administrators (DAs) of Minle Wine Negociants of Australia Pty Ltd…