After all the defiance and all the warnings McGrathNicol and the FEG Recovery Unit have turned demure as mice and settled their differences in a confidential arrangement that allows for no comment. Such was the outcome this week in the Federal Court when Justice Brigitte Markovic made orders by consent in Commonwealth of Australia represented by the Department of Employment V Peter McKenzie Anderson & Ors….
It doesn’t do to mix your WIP. Nor does it do to confuse a judge. Hall Chadwick duo Richard Albarran and David Ross may have accidentally done both, and it’s cost them eighty grand. The recent lopping of around three quarters off their claim for remuneration as receivers of the DOH Family Trust follows a period during which Albarran and Ross have also acted as 1) voluntary administrators of…
The test-case loving litigators running the highly profitable FEG recoveries unit have again spiked McGrathNicol’s cream, this time intervening in an application by the receivers of Australian Road Express (ARX) and Jolly’s Transport Services, who’re seeking orders allowing them to treat receivables as a non-circulating asset. McGrathNicol’s Anthony Connelly, Rob Kirman and Robert Smith made the application back in April this year and served it on…
PPB Advisory’s Chris Hill has saved his firm hundreds of thousands of dollars after successfully opposing an order for a subpoena sought by the directors of Force Corp (in liquidation), and thanks to Justice Fabian Gleeson, Insolvency News Online (INO) can report on the matter in detail. In the matter of Force Corp Pty Ltd (Recs and Mgrs Apptd) (in liq) [2018] NSWSC 896 (15 June 2018) we…
Availability of and access to litigation funders is one of the biggest challenges for liquidators and while funder numbers have swelled in recent years it doesn’t mean the dollars are easier to find. Liquidator Michael Hird has spent considerable time trying to attract a backer willing to underwrite examinations of some of the directors of the failed Allmine Group, a search outlined in convenient detail…
While the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry has yet to identify insolvency practitioners (IP) it wants hauled in for questioning, it’s likely some will be checking their professional indemnity policies to ensure they’re up to date. At the moment the Commission is looking at the excesses indulged in by the banks’ lending divisions. Soon that focus will switch…
Insolvent auction houses. Who’d touch one after the mess BDO’s James White, Andrew Sallway and Nick Martin have found themselves in? Grey House Partners, that’s who. In Re Mossgreen Pty Ltd (in liquidation) [2018] VSC 230 (9 May 2018) we learn of a recent attempt to install Greyhouse’s Andrew Beck and Ben Verney as receivers of goods stored in a warehouse in the Victorian suburb of Clayton. From…
Now PwC’s takeover of PPB Advisory has been endorsed by PPBA’s partners, the market’s attention will inevitably shift to the remaining independents operating at the top end – KordaMentha, McGrathNicol, Ferrier Hodgson and FTI Consulting. Does a similar fate await those remaining? SiN’s mail is that McGrathNicol has already fielded informal expressions of interest. Executive chairman Peter Anderson however wasn’t giving anything away. “We continue to…
In the current climate of applications for leave to appeal to the High Court about decisions relating to trust property, SiN noticed this judgment emanating from South Australian-based Federal Court judge Richard White involving a dispute about bicycles, which affirms administrators’ and liquidators’ rights to claim remuneration and expenses from trust assets. The judge’s ruling came after Tim Clifton and Daniel Lopresti of Clifton Hall were earlier…
The Federal Court’s Justice Steven Rares has utilised a receiver’s claim for remuneration to opine less than favourably about the “above normal returns” attracting increasing numbers of hopefuls into the colosseum that is Australia’s litigation funding space. In Australian Executor Trustee Ltd v Provident Capital Ltd [2018] FCA 439 Justice Rares quoted University of New South Wales Professor of Law Michael Legg, who in a recent article determined that…