Insolvency practitioners at Hall Chadwick are enmeshed in at least two fee fights at present and the common denominator in both is Sydney practice head Richard Albarran.
iNO readers will be familiar with the travails being experienced by Albarran and outgoing Melbourne partner Richard Lawrence in respect of work they did on Tauro Capital (Tauro), an appointment they were relieved of after creditors punted them with fees and costs outstanding in favour of PKF’s Paul Allen and Jason Stone.
Albarran and Lawrence have since been chasing about $225,000 for work and costs associated with the Tauro administration in circumstances where certain creditors are implacably opposed.
After they commenced proceedings last year in the Supreme Court of Victoria seeking judicial approval for their claim creditors, including the ATO, queued up to oppose.
Then a personal change at the tax office saw the ATO’s opposition metamorphose into a settlement offer. Blessed are the peacemakers.
That offer was put to creditors late last month and rejected and Albarran and Lawrence’s application is now scheduled for hearing before a Registrar on September 18. iNO will update on the outcome of this fee fight when it becomes available.
Less well known however is the fight Albarran, and Hall Chadwick partners Cameron Shaw and Marcus Watters are having with a pair of rival insolvency practitioners in West Australia.
This week in the Federal Court a two day hearing concluded with judgment reserved in respect of a claim by the three Hall Chadwick partners for more than $1 million in remuneration and costs supposedly earned and incurred in respect of their appointments to AMS Holdings (WA) Pty Ltd (AMS), an entity associated with alleged Ponzi scheme operator Chris Marco.
The Hall Chadwick trio were appointed as administrators of AMS in September 2020 and replaced in December of that year after McGrathNicol partners Rob Brauer and Rob Kirman – who’d been appointed interim receivers of the property of Marco and of AMS in May 2020 – had AMS wound up by the courts, the Hall Chadwick trio removed and themselves appointed as liquidators of AMS and of the impugned scheme.
Less than six months later Albarran, Shaw and Watters filed their remuneration application comprising claims for remuneration of $893,523.30 for the period 24 September 2020 to 7 December 2020; legal fees in the sum of $257,277; and $24,000 in account of professional legal costs incidental to the application.
Brauer and Kirman were having none of it, questioning whether much of the work undertaken by the former administrators was “necessary” and “proper”.
During the hearing this week the court heard that the Liquidators have concerns the Hall Chadwick trio undertook work that was beyond the scope of their appointment and was, therefore, unnecessary.
Further the liquidators’ view was that the former administrators found themselves involved in work of increasing size and complexity which could have been avoided with consultation with the court.
The outcome of both fights awaits the courts’ indulgence.
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