Inspector General in Bankruptcy Tim Beresford. Tim Beresford’s loathing of overtly ungenerous personal insolvency agreements (PIA) has become common knowledge in the last two years, courtesy of two episodes of Trumpian-scale intervention. The first came in 2024 when in an unprecedented move the Inspector-General in Bankruptcy (IGB) and AFSA CEO applied in the Federal Court to have the PIA of Brisbane lawyer Beau Hartnett set…
William Buck’s Michael Brereton. Wexted Advisors Joe Hayes. In approximately 24 hours a phalanx of expensive lawyers will assemble in court room 8c of the NSW Supreme Court ahead of the pending hearing of an application to wind up Tahmoor Coal Pty Ltd (Tahmoor). Seeking to delay that hearing will be Wexted Advisors’ Joe Hayes and Chris Johnson, who as the recently appointed administrators of…
Bruno Secatore. If claims filed in the Supreme Court of Victoria are to be believed the directors of the trustee of the Cor Cordis unit trust passed a series of resolutions that dramatically reduced the value of the firm’s work in progress (WIP) after ex-national managing partner Bruno Secatore retired. A 43 page writ, filed for Secatore by KingWood Mallesons in the Supreme Court of…
Sheridan’s Jennifer Low. Former Pitcher Partners WA chairman Bryan Hughes. Jennifer Low’s tenacious pursuit of insolvent trading claims against the directors of Titan Interactive Pty Ltd – these days known as ACN 116 313 921 Pty Ltd – continues to grind forward with a judgment delivered in the Federal Court last week resolving questions about how Low and her lawyers might mount a claim for…
Bruno Secatore. Ex-Cor Cordis chairman Bruno Secatore is suing the firm’s partnership, claiming his former colleagues fiddled the WIP to reduce his entitlements after he retired from the practice in 2023. According to legal news site Lawyerly Secatore claims resolutions were passed in “bad faith” to reduce the firm’s work in practice (WIP) from $23 million to $12.7 million. This Secatore asserts was done deliberately…
Asset Recovery Group’s Alan Walker. So what’s behind the departure, announced this week, of WLP Restructuring (WLPR) co-founder Alan Walker? WLP co-founder Glenn Livingstone told iNO yesterday Walker’s “desire to leave WLP and focus on other opportunities was respectful and our parting was amicable”. Fair enough. But what “other opportunities”? On December 3 last year Walker registered Asset Restructuring Group Pty Ltd (ARG). A February…
Rest easy. The judge who last year said he might need to recuse himself from hearing a contempt of court case involving Sydney man Nahi Gazal this week gave the all clear. On Monday the judge told counsel for the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (DCoT) that he had received his tax refund. In December the judge revealed that he had been contacted by the tax…
New ARITA CEO John Melluish. Ex-ARITA chief executive officer Jonathan Smithers The Australian Restructuring, Insolvency and Turnaround Association (ARITA) has lost its chief executive Jonathan Smithers after four months in the job, with registered liquidator and industry veteran John Melluish to formally take over on December 15. In a statement circulated to members yesterday afternoon the ARITA board said Smithers had resigned. “After some consideration,…
Consider the all too convenient and unlikely coincidence at the heart of this tale and despair. Some five months after finding Sydney man Nahi Gazal to be in contempt of court over almost $5 million withdrawn from bank accounts that were the subject of freezing orders, the ruling judge this week declared that he may have to disqualify himself from further hearings after learning that…
FTI Consulting’s Vaughan Strawbridge. Few things can be more frustrating for penniless liquidators anticipating a legal issue’s swift resolution than the dawning realisation that their expectations were ill-founded. “It was anticipated that the Replacement Application would be resolved in a relatively short period of time and on that basis there would not be a material delay to the Liquidators’ investigations and potential commencement of actions…