Liquidator restrained as creditors invited to replace

Hamilton Murphy principal Steve Dixon has ended the year on a spectacular note, featuring in a judgment which raises doubts about his independence and concludes that neither Dixon or anyone from Hamilton Murphy should act as liquidator of any of the entities within the Eratos Group.

“The circumstances in which the administrator’s firm, HM Advisory, lent more than $500,000 to the companies and incurred fees of approximately $380,000 prior to 30 June 2025 were entirely unexplained in the evidence. That level of apparent funding of the company while it traded in administration prior to entry into the proposed creditors’ trust of which Mr Dixon was proposed to be the administrator appears to me to be unusual.”

In Eratos Group Pty Ltd (in liq) [2025] VSC 755, Supreme Court of Victoria judge Jim Delaney made orders restraining Dixon and anyone from HM Advisory Pty Ltd from acting as liquidator and granted liberty to the ATO, former Eratos executive Kate Goss or any other creditor to apply to replace Dixon.

If a replacement liquidator is funded, Dixon might well find himself grilled about a range of awkward matters, beginning with Dixon’s relationship with Eratos sole director and deed proponent John William Chung; Dixon’s lack of scrutiny in respect of potential insolvent trading claims, the disclosure of a valuable asset after Dixon had issued his report to creditors and after creditors had convened to vote on Chung’s DoCA resolution, a vote which would not have passed if not for Dixon using his casting vote to push it through and about why HM Advisory was funding the Eratos trade on.

Pointedly, the judge’s reasons stem from Dixon’s application for leave to transfer Eratos shares, proceedings which Dixon commenced several months ago whilst deed administrator.

The application was opposed by Goss, who’d discovered after her employment was terminated in 2024 that shares she and her husband held in the company had been cancelled, supposedly mistakenly.

Ultimately Goss’s opposition won out, with the judge remarking that even before his chambers were informed that Dixon had terminated the DoCA and been appointed liquidator he had concluded that Dixon shouldn’t be anywhere near that gig.