There you are, doing the right thing by your secured appointor – in this case Greg Woszczalski’s Grow Trade Finance Pty Ltd – when the liquidator who’s supposed to sit there quietly attending to statutory matters hits you with notices to produce and summons for examination.
And not just any summons. Summons under S596A. Summons that are mandatory.
Unlike their discretionary sibling, the liquidator doesn’t have to provide any justification as to why he wants to question the recipient receivers under a mandatory summons. He just does. 596A allows it.
But Richard Albarran and Brent Kijurina aren’t known for obsequious compliance when there’s a contest and as the receivers of Enretech Australasia Pty Limited (now trading as ACN 070 856 414) they filed an application seeking to have the notices and summonses – issued on behalf of Enretech’s liquidator Glenn Livingstone – set aside.
Given they’re officers of the court such a stance would not perhaps be viewed positively by Corporations List judge Ashley Black, who was scheduled to hear the application at 2:00pm today.
Maybe that’s why overnight the Hall Chadwick abandoned their high risk course and we are now likely to see them in the witness box starting Monday and if you’re an iNO Priority member you’ll read about how often they prefaced their responses with the word “privilege” shortly afterwards.
It used to be that the compulsory process was only used in exceptional circumstances and the Court supported that approach. The old days have clearly ended.