Friday 23 August 2013

Mark Levi "persistently dishonest" - CALDB

THE decision by the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board (CALDB) to strip Mark Darren Levi of his liquidator's registration has been upheld after the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) rejected for a second time the Titan Advisory founder's application for a stay.

In judgement published this week, AAT deputy president Robin Handley found no reason to grant a stay, or agree to Levi's request that the CALDB decision be kept confidential. (See the full judgement here)

Levi's lawyer, John Sutton of Armstrong Legal, said today his client would apply to have CALDB's decision set aside at a full hearing of the ATT. Levi denies the allegations that lay at the heart of CALDB's deliberations.

CALDB ruled Levi unfit to hold a liquidator's registration on July 2, 2013 after a three day hearing last May.

The CALDB hearing stemmed from an application to the board by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) on October 12, 2012.

ASIC sought the cancellation of Levi's registration as a liquidator, alleging that in April 2009 and again in October 2009, while working for Pitt Street liquidator Jamieson Louttit & Associates (JLA), Levi used funds from Biseja, a company in receivership, to pay his personal tax.

Thursday 22 August 2013

Obeid's Streetscape DoCA terminated


Streetscape Projects director
Moses Obeid. Photo: Optus Zoo
THE deed of company arrangement (DoCA) governing Moses Obeid’s Streetscape Projects is toast after a court yesterday ordered the controversial DoCA be dissolved.

In the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Ashley Black terminated the deed and, under the relevant sections of the Corporations Act, ordered that the termination give the same effect as if a special resolution to wind the company up had been passed.

As a consequence deed administrators Ozem Kassem and Robert Kyte of Cor Cordis are out and Deloitte’s senior insolvency operator David Lombe is in. 

Appointing Lombe as  liquidator is a victory for City of Sydney Council, which brought the application as Streetscape's major unsecured creditor.