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| Pino Fiorentino |
PINO Fiorentino is facing cancellation of his liquidator's ticket after Justice Michael Wigney ruled yesterday that the Sydney-based insolvency practitioner had failed to convince the court he was denied procedural fairness by the Companies Auditors Liquidators Disciplinary Board (CALDB).
Fiorentino applied to the Federal Court on February 5 this year after CALDB had two days earlier refused his application to adjourn a hearing brought on by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
The corporate regulator wants CALDB to cancel Fiorentino's liquidator's registration over his handling of the insolvency of ERB International. Fiorentino has previously rejected ASIC's allegations. (See: Liquidator denies procuring proxies)
CALDB refused Fiorentino's adjournment application on the grounds that it had already adjourned the matter on several occasions since the first scheduled hearing of ASIC's application on October 21, 2013.
Further, Fiorentino wanted the adjournment so he could sue his professional indemnity insurance provider for refusing to fund the legal expenses associated with defending ASIC's application.
CALDB however was unwilling to accept that such an action would be concluded after six months - as was submitted by Fiorentino - or that further adjournments were justified.
"At the end of the day, the timing of hearings before the Board cannot depend on the vicissitudes of a respondent's private funding arrangements," CALDB said.
Page 13 of the Wigney judgement reveals that CALDB "has not yet made a decision in relation to ASIC's substantive application," the hearing of which concluded on February 6, 2014.
Given CALDB's oft-stated commitment to dealing expeditiously with matters brought before it, a decision may not be long in coming now Justice Wigney has published his reasons.
Fiorentino did not respond when contacted by SiN today so we are unable to report his reaction or whether he is considering other avenues of potential appeal. For detailed background see:
Liquidator denies procuring proxies
Insolvency veteran slapped with suspension
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SYDNEY liquidator Pino Fiorentino has strenuously denied allegations he procured invalid employee proxies and voted them in support of a resolution to approve his fees.
"I never procured anything,” the registered and official liquidator told Sydney Insolvency News (SiN) during a break in a hearing before the Federal Court last week.
“I made a mistake. I didn’t check the proxies. There’s no way I told the director, ‘fill out the proxies and sign them yourself’,” he said.
Fiorentino's comments came as the Federal Court heard his application for a judicial review of a hearing held before the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board (CALDB) last February.
In late January and early February this year CALDB rejected several applications by Fiorentino for an adjournment of a hearing brought before CALDB by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), which is seeking cancellation of Fiorentino’s liquidator’s registration.
The last adjournment application, made on February 2, proceeded without Fiorentino being present for the bulk of the hearing. Nor was he represented by legal counsel.
CALDB went on to refuse the adjournment application and on February 4 heard the ASIC application. Fiorentino is challenging CALDB’s refusal to grant the adjournment and the subsequent hearing of the ASIC application. At time of writing CALDB had not made its determinations and reasons public.
In an outline of Fiorentino’s Federal Court submissions obtained by SiN, the impact of the proceedings currently before CALDB is described as “grave” because “ …. the orders sought by ASIC amount to no less than causing the permanent end to the career of the Applicant”.
The ASIC application was formally brought before CALDB in 2013 following an investigation by the regulator into ERB International, which had owned the Ella Rouge Beauty salon chain.
