Cor Cordis lands a plum from ASIC

$500,000 for expenses and disbursements. Not a bad start. Certainly it will give Cor Cordis partners Kate Conneely and Tom Birch room to open their shoulders as they commence investigations into the exceedingly mysterious case of 24-U Pty Ltd.

You read that right. $500,000. From ASIC. How? Think ProvLiq.

In the Federal Court last Friday ASIC applied for and obtained orders for the appointment of Conneely and Birch as provisional liquidators (ProvLiqs) over 95 entities redolent of irregularity, though iNO makes no assertion of wrongdoing.

In a copy of the orders shared in a media statement released by the regulator, ASIC is required to pay: “$500,000 (exclusive GST) towards the costs of the Provisional Liquidators, where any costs of the Provisional Liquidators are not recoverable from the assets of the defendants, provided that an agreed portion of that funding be used for the payment of any disbursements reasonably incurred by any liquidator (if so appointed) for the purposes of making any application pursuant to s 90-15 of the Insolvency Practice Schedule regarding the scope of any liquidation (with such portion to be agreed between the plaintiff and the liquidator)”.

You won’t get half a million out of the Assetless Administration Fund (AAF) but in a ProvLiq where asset preservation is the focus the regulator’s pockets are seemingly Stygian.

In the course of the application before Justice Angus Stewart ASIC was also granted orders for suppression of affidavits and other supporting materials so sweeping that the file number for the matter registers a “No file found” when searched on the Commonwealth Courts Portal.

Clues to the identities of those potentially involved however can be found by running searches of some of the 95 defendant entities, which include Rootie Tech Solutions Pty Ltd, Cloud Bridge Capital Pty Ltd, and Jinte Net Blcokckhain Pty Ltd.

iNO wasn’t far into the process when we realised more than a few companies had been deregistered prior to ASIC’s application and some records included Form 377, the Notice as to the holding of an office in a company.

This led us to Baulkham Hills resident Mario Ruiz, who told iNO he had discovered last year he’d been registered as a director of 10 of the defendant entities without his knowledge or consent.

He lodged the relevant forms advising ASIC of such in October, 2023.

Mr Ruiz confirmed he’d provided a statement to ASIC and added that the regulator had been very helpful.