Morton + Lee Insolvency’s Leon Lee. Voluntary administrator Leon Lee has denied adjourning a meeting of creditors of Bulkbuild Pty Ltd last week to prevent a vote to replace him. On Thursday Lee presided over the first meeting of creditors of Bulkbuild, to which he was appointed by sole director Digen Yi Hur on May 18. Accounts of what transpired before the meeting was adjourned…
dVT’s David Solomons dVT’s Riad Tayeh Stat demands, divorcees and former business partners now rivals in the Northern Territory’s child care sector? The question here is what could possibly go right. Sydney liquidators David Solomons and Riad Tayeh might well be wondering the same, after a Judge of the Queensland Supreme Court found that liquidators don’t have to have acted unreasonably before they can be…
Marcus Watters – A dozen jobs the price of joining Hall Chadwick. With the departure of Marcus Watters, Jirsch Sutherland has lost a senior Queensland operative to rival Hall Chadwick but it’s clung tenaciously to the departee’s dozen or so appointments, ensuring whatever worthwhile WIP might reside in those jobs has been kept out of the coffers of Jirsch’s fiercest foe. Watters moved to Hall…
Cor Cordis NSW partner Ozem Kassem. Image courtesy Cor Cordis. It’s probably not every day the chief professional body for registered liquidators and bankruptcy trustees cops a subpoena but it happened recently in regard to former member and Cor Cordis partner Ozem Kassem. Kassem was expelled from Australian Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association (ARITA) in April 2018 for refusing to engage an independent assessor to…
Deloitte’s Vaughan Strawbridge. KordaMentha’s Mark Korda. As significant a news story as Deloitte’s appointment as voluntary administrators (VAs) of Virgin Australia Group is, it pales beside the unsubstantiated scuttlebutt upon which iNO routinely latches like a vengeful lamprey with a surfeit of monarchs. Simply put, the mail going around is that KordaMentha co-founder Mark Korda is less than impressed at being overlooked for this historic…
Duff & Phelps’ Ken Whittingham. Signed with Duff & Phelps: Marcus Ayres. For some time Talent Transfer has been wondering where insolvency veteran Ken Whittingham would land since departing PwC. Now we know. The former PPB partner, who endured less than a year at the big four consultancy before succumbing to the conflict-a-thon, has emerged in a senior role at the Sydney office of global…
ARITA President Scott Atkins. AIIP President Stephen Hathway. ARITA president Scott Atkins wants businesses seeking safe harbour protection to be exempted from compliance with their tax and employee obligations as the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to decimate Australian SMEs. Atkins, who is Head of Risk Advisory at Norton Rose Fullbright, said to prevent mass insolvencies the federal government should freeze laws around insolvent trading and safe…
McGrathNicol Partner Kathy Sozou. Image McGrathNicol. Ankura senior managing director Quentin Olde. While the extent of the impact on business of the COVID-19 pandemic remains unknown, what is certain is that Australia’s nascent safe harbour regime and the capacities of our insolvency firms are set to be tested like never before. Restructuring practitioners contacted this week confirmed they were fielding more enquiries from company directors…
Recently retired from PwC: Greg Hall. Retired PwC veteran Greg Hall may have had enough after more than 20 years as liquidator of Interchase Corporation, but the need for external administrators persists, with his now former colleagues Phil Carter and Daniel Walley appointed as Hall’s replacements yesterday by order of the Federal Court. During the brief hearing before Justice Jacquie “how sweet it is” Gleeson,…
DW Advisory’s Paul Weston. Worrells’ Simon Cathro. Paul Weston probably knew when he accepted the appointment as voluntary administrator (VA) of the Kiwi-controlled South Pelagic Holdings Pty Ltd (receivers and managers appointed) that his tenure could be brief. By the time lawyer Michael O’Neill brought the referral to the now ex-Pitcher Partners‘ partner in December 2019, receivers were installed and winding up proceedings underway. Weston…