When you’re conducting what might be the largest and most complex public examination ever run by Australian liquidators, maintaining the process without inadvertently creating additional complexity can be challenging, as Pitcher Partners’ Andrew Yeo and Gess Rambaldi have discovered after being dragged into a potential defamation action between one of the examinees and Fairfax Media’s The Age newspaper. On August 28 Tim Batchelor, a locksmith…
It was an awkward few hours in the witness box for liquidator David Iannuzzi on Wednesday, with the the Veritas Advisory principal at one point providing a description of a company director who only hours earlier sat in the same chair insisting the pair had never met. Iannuzzi was in court as part of public examinations being run by the Commonwealth’s FEG Recovery Unit, which is investigating the circumstances around…
INO’s culinary attache recently made note of Veritas Advisory’s David Iannuzzi and Steve Naidenov enjoying the splendid fare at high end Chinese restaurant Spice Temple, observing that the pair, who are currently being examined by the FEG Recovery Unit in regard to their handling of the MK Floors liquidation, were reportedly relaxed and enjoying their lunch with unidentified guests. The report from our source neatly corresponded with a letter…
What a liquidator and ASIC jointly affirm in an enforceable undertaking (EU), a tax agent can seemingly refute in a few hours of public examination. Such was what INO witnessed last Friday in the Federal Court as accountant and registered tax agent Frank Bruzzano denied ever having provided advice on the solvency or otherwise of any company or client, including Lidcombe Plastering Services Pty Ltd (LPS), its…
One of the welcome consequences of the Federal Government’s December 2016 decision to expand FEG’s recovery activities has been an increased focus on insolvency industry advisors, particularly those whose success at pulling a client out of a hole is not commensurate with their success in pocketing fat fees, irrespective of outcomes. In MK Liquidator Floored By Phoenix Allegation INO revealed how colourful insolvency advisors Al Constantinidis and Socrates “Scott” Kitas…
Pitcher Partners‘ mother-of-all public examinations kicked off this week and already two liquidators names have been mentioned in despatches as the marathon inquiry into an alleged $100 million phoenixing scheme gains momentum in room 8B of Melbourne’s Federal Court. Pitcher’s Andrew Yeo and Gess Rambaldi are being funded by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to prise open what may be the largest phoenix syndicate yet uncovered and as part of…
Sydney liquidator Steve Naidenov has been asked if he knew an insolvency appointment was a phoenix transaction during an at times heated public examination into the affairs of the MK Floors Group. The question, which Naidenov strenuously rejected, came towards the end of the first day of a multi-day examination brought by the Commonwealth’s FEG Recovery Unit. FEG is seeking $1.5 million from Naidenov and Veritas Advisory head…
It might not have been around as long as God and the Devil but for genuine enmity can any rivalry match the hellfire-eclipsing friction generated when insolvency practitioners go auditors? In this particular chapter of the eternal struggle, Ferrier Hodgson’s Peter Gothard and Jim Stewart have finally taken the tridents to Moore Stephens’ Elizabeth Perez and Jeff Matchett, auditors of Payless Shoes. We say finally because the Ferriers duo…
Along with a luminary of the Labor party’s past, Veritas Advisory’s David Iannuzzi and Steve Naidenov have been summoned to appear for public examination in August in relation to the liquidation of the MK Floors Group. Regular INO readers may recall that after Iannuzzi and Naidenov were appointed voluntary administrators (VAs) of the MK Floors Group on October 10, 2016 they had to fend off…
The public examination of persons related to the failure of Waltek Industries has again exposed the vulnerabilities inherent in the referral relationship, vulnerabilities which if ignored can rebound. Louttit & Associates’ Jamieson Louttit has been conducting examinations into the curious circumstances of Waltek’s near simultaneous incorporation and failure in June 2015, assisted with funding from the Fair Entitlements Guarantee (FEG) recovery division. His predecessors on…