Fiorentino to fight on as CALDB declares failings "significant and extensive"

Pino Fiorentino

PINO Fiorentino will seek to overturn a decision by the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board (CALDB) that has seen him stripped him of his liquidator's registration.

CALDB said in a statment: "The serious and extensive nature of the failings was such as to warrant cancellation of Mr Fiorentino’s registration."

Those "failings" relate to Fiorentino's handling of the affairs of ERB International, to which he was appointed primary liquidator in April, 2008.

According to CALDB the failings "involved a number of different aspects of the liquidation of ERB and involved dishonest use of position, failure to act in good faith in the best interests of ERB and its creditors, lack of competence and failure to comply with statutory provisions." CALDB reached its decision on June 24, 2014, ordering that the deregistration take effect after 14 days.

But Fiorentino told SiN he would ask the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to review the evidence used by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in its application to CALDB.

"This decision by CALDB is totally flawed," he said. "I want the court to make an order that until the review of the evidence by the AAT, it is not right for them to draw conclusions from wrong facts."

Fiorentino also said he's been denied a fair hearing. He said he had paid Tony McGrath of McGrathNicol $30,000 for an expert witness report and had not been given the opportunity to use it at the hearing on February 4, 2014, which took place without him because he refused to participate unrepresented by legal counsel.

Scott and Pascoe poised to get Godfrey

PPB Advisory's Andrew Scott
Photo: SiN Images

MURRAY Godfrey, registered liquidator and official liquidator of the NSW Supreme Court and the Federal Court, is facing a creditor’s petition hearing over a $160,000 judgement debt.

The petition application was filed in the Federal Court on Wednesday, October 23. 

Also filed was a consent authority, signed a day earlier by Andrew Scott and Scott Pascoe of PPB Advisory. 

The filings come less than a week after a court dismissed Godfrey's application to have a bankruptcy notice set aside. 

Scott and Pascoe have agreed to act as trustees of Godfrey’s estate in the event the court orders sequestration and Godfrey is bankrupted.

If appointed, Godfrey will be the first Sydney-based insolvency practitioner the pair have on their books. They also manages the affairs of a bankrupt practitioner from Melbourne.

Murray Godfrey facing bankruptcy action

Murray Godfrey.
Photo Veritas Advisory

MURRAY Godfrey, founder of RMG offshoot Veritas Advisory, is potentially facing bankruptcy after a court last week dismissed his application to have a bankruptcy notice set aside.

In her judgement of October 18, newly-minted Federal Court Justice Melissa Perry outlines why Godfrey’s application - which argued that the notice should be set aside because it had been served twice and was capable of misleading him - must fail.

“I consider that a debtor in the applicant’s circumstances … would have understood that the act of second service would not absolve him of the responsibility to comply with the notice within the period of 21 days from the date of first service on 5 July 2013”, Justice Perry said.

Godfrey is being chased by Weriton Finance over a $160,000 debt incurred following consent orders made in the District Court in 2012. He declined to comment when contacted by SiN. It is not known if he intends to appeal.

Weriton Finance is associated with Graham Keith Werry, and DTC No. 1 Pty Limited (in Liquidation).

Werry, a property developer with a significant footprint in the Illawarra region, has had issues of his own recently, details of which are contained in this Enforceable Undertaking he provided to ASIC in March, 2011.

Godfrey consented to the District Court orders in March 2012. They required him to pay $160,000 to DTC No. 1 Pty Ltd by December 20, 2012.