of Cor Cordis.
ASIC last week announced the members of its Reviewing Liquidator (RevLiq) Panel for the 2024/2025. In 12 months not much has changed.
One extra member has been added to the latest panel, which comprised 14 members in 2023/2024.
The current panel also boasts an extra panellist from what would be considered one of the larger firms
This might be considered a coup for ASIC given sources indicate that RevLiq appointments are not regarded as particularly attractive from a fee-earning perspective.
Last year the panel included Will Cowell from KPMG, Robyn Duggan from EY and Mike McCann from Grant Thornton.
While Colwell and KPMG are absent this year McGrathNicol’s Anthony Connelly and Deloitte’s Robert Woods have come on board and both Duggan and McCann have been reappointed for a second term.
And they’re far from alone on that score.
Brooke Bird and ARITA life member Robyn Erskine is also back for another crack at erring peers, as is Hayes Advisory’s Alan Hayes, Pilot Partners’ Brad Hellen, Pitcher Partners’ David Vasudevan, Shaw Gidley co-founder Paul Gidley and Simon Cathro of Cathro & Partners.
Among the new inclusions are BDO’s Todd Kelly, Pitcher Partners’ Andrew Yeo, Olvera Advisors Neil Cussen, Dye & Co’s Shane Dean and Cor Cordis partner and ARITA president Rachel Burdett, so female representation on this year’s panel is 20 per cent, almost double the percentage of female registered liquidators in the regulated population.
Other than Colwell, the departees include Peter Lanthois from Duncan Powell, Cathro & Partners Henry Kazar, Pilot Partners Nigel Markey, Geoff Reidy of Rodgers Reidy, and Stephen Michell of PCI Partners.
In response to questions from iNO ASIC saidthat in the 2022/2023 period the regulator only referred one reviewing liquidator appointment to the panel.
This was the same number of referrals as in 2021/2022, one more than in 2020/2021 and a sharp decline from the eight referrals made in 2019/2020.
In the first year that the panel was in operation – 2018/2019 – ASIC made only one referral.
See: ASIC appoints 15 members to new Reviewing Liquidator Panel
Isn’t it nice to have these additional levels of external control in addition to “special purpose liquidators”.
I wonder whether these types of appointments do anything other than increase costs, create confusion and result in less becoming available to ordinary unsecured creditors.