WA Insolvency Solutions’ Greg Prout. WA Insolvency Solutions’ Jimmy Trpcevski. The moral of this particular tale is that if you want a judge to approve your application to significantly extend the convening period, don’t starve them of detail. “It must be understood that requests for extensions of the convening period under s 439A are not simply available for the asking.” Supreme Court of West Australia…
Cathro & Partners’ Andrew Blundell. RSM’s Richard Stone. Cathro Partners Andrew Blundell and Simon Cathro must have thought that they had a good chance of retaining their appointments as voluntary administrators (VAs) of failed chartered accounting firm Talbots Pty Ltd when proceedings commenced yesterday morning. Those proceedings constituted the hearing of an application brought by the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (DCoT) for the immediate winding…
Deloitte partner Matthew Donnelly. Deloitte partner Sean Holmes. Getting court approval for remuneration and guidance on how to distribute trust monies to unit holders is one thing. Getting the court to approve your application for orders winding up an unregistered managed investment scheme is something else again, as two Deloitte insolvency and restructuring partners recently discovered. “In my view, the plaintiffs do not have standing…
Committee chairman Senator Deborah O’Neill. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services released its report into Corporate Insolvency in Australia this week and the full list of the Committee’s recommendations can be viewed below, along with a link to the report. Unsurprisingly, the main recommendation of the Committee is that inquiries continue. The Committee has found that Australia’s insolvency regime is no longer…
Dye & Co’s Nicholas Giasoumi. Nine months might seem a fair old span to let pass before asking a court to declare that you’ve acted reasonably in trading on a bare trustee but as former Prime Minister John Howard likes to remind us, context is everything. To begin with, knowing that the sole function of the company to which you’re appointed was to act as…
Balance Insolvency principal Tim Cook. An abundance of caution. If ever there was a phrase that gets an airing in most if not all court applications it would be this, at least when those applications involve an insolvency practitioner seeking fee approval for work performed as both liquidator of a corporate trustee and receiver of the associated trust assets. The reason for the phrase’s frequency…
Olvera Advisors’ Kate Barnet. Olvera Advisors’ Damien Hodgkinson. The NSW Supreme Court of Appeal has overturned a decision that favoured the Commonwealth over a secured creditor in a dispute over which them was entitled to almost $2 million in Research & Development (R&D) tax refunds. In the primary decision delivered in March last year, NSW Supreme Court judge Ashley Black found that the refunds constituted…
FEG Active Creditor Recovery Unit Director Henry Carr. As iNO reported recently, Commonwealth FEG recovery Czar Henry Carr doesn’t like losing which is why it’s no surprise to learn that the taxpayer-backed Active Creditor Unit has filed a notice of intention to appeal in respect of the decision In the matter of BCA National Training Group Pty Ltd (in liq) [2023] NSWSC 366. The notice…
Oracle Insolvency Services’s Nick Cooper. It seems there’s nothing like putting the frighteners on a recalcitrant debtor to ensure compliance with an existing repayment agreement and pleasingly, the Federal Circuit Court endorses such intimidation when the motives are pure and in line with the Act. “While, of course, from time to time, remarks have been made by Courts exercising jurisdiction under the Act about the…
Cor Cordis partner Sam Kaso. Cor Cordis Melbourne partner Bruno Secatore. Cor Cordis duo Sam Kaso and Bruno Secatore will be relieved following a decision of the Federal Court delivered this week in Kaso (administrator), in the matter of Sanitation Maintenance Services Pty Ltd (administrators appointed) [2023] FCA 418. The pair were appointed administrators of Sanitation Maintenance Services and three related companies in July 2022….