David Ianuzzi is not going to forget his first time as lead receiver anytime soon. In just a few hours in the witness box on Monday the Veritas Advisory principal was forced to admit his treatment of certain debts in the 2014 receivership of Mentmore Pty Ltd had been flawed, that his initial 524 report needed correcting and that the only reason he hadn’t already…
Unlike PPB Advisory partner Simon Theobald who has been unable to recall many aspects of the Burrup Fertilisers receivership when quizzed, Radhika Oswal, wife of Burrup founder Pankaj Oswal and a major shareholder in her own right yesterday recalled with distinct clarity how the sum total of her involvement in the company’s affairs was mostly none at all. Appearing in the Supreme Court of Victoria for the…
As was reported earlier this week, PPB partner Simon Theobald was having a devil of time on Monday morning. There he was in the witness box of the Supreme Court of Victoria, unable to recall much about about a veritable welter of internal and external communications sent or received during his tenure as one of three PPB partners appointed as receivers to Burrup Fertilisers Group…
PPB’s Simon Theobald had another torrid time in the witness box yesterday as counsel for Pankaj and Rhadika Oswal continued to toast the former receiver of Burrup Fertilisers over the Oswals’ claims that in arranging the Burrup sale, PPB failed to adequately consider their interests thereby cheating them out of up to $2.5 billion. It’s a bold counter claim for a couple accused by ANZ…
If any insolvency practitioner remains uncertain as to the intentions of the Department of Employment’s (DoE) Active Creditor Unit (ACU), contemplate the plight of dVT Group’s Riad Tayeh, whose role as receiver of Delnote Constructions has recently been the subject of public examinations in the NSW Supreme Court. Tayeh and dVT colleague David Solomons were appointed receivers of the commercial concreter in November 2014. The appointor was Hermes…
HELL hath no fury like a banker denied the voluntary administrator (VA) of his choice, as Grant Thornton’s Paul Billingham discovered during his truncated tenure as VA of Arrium. As a result of accepting the appointment, SiN understands at least four receiverships were lopped from GT’s advisory division in a day. The axe was wielded by Westpac’s restructuring chief Gwyn Morgan, who wanted good mate Peter Andersen’s firm McGrathNicol…
WITH judgement pending on Justice Antony Siopi’s inquiry into the handling of the Burrup Fertilisers receivership, extraordinary allegations made about partners and staff of PPB at the eleventh hour by Martin Goldblatt can now be aired, alongside PPB’s rebuttals. One of the main planks of plaintiff Pankaj Oswal’s pursuit of breach of duty findings against Ian Carson, David McEvoy and Simon Theobald rests on the…
IT’S taken 12 months but KPMG’s Damian Templeton has – with King & Wood Mallesons’ help – overturned a September 2014 judgement rejecting his application for a review of an earlier determination slashing his and former partner Phil Hennessy’s remuneration as receivers of the illegal Letten Schemes by $545,000. Last Friday the Court of Appeal set aside a September 2014 judgement of Justice Michelle Gordon (now…
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…