Uninvited crash Octaviar’s ex-parte

Bentleys' Kate Barnet
Photo: SiN Images

SUPREME Court Acting Justice Peter Young has spiked the punch at the Octaviar liquidators’ ex-parte party.

In a recent judgement the judge criticised liquidators Kate Barnet and Bill Fletcher for a lack of candour, branded Barnet’s performance during cross examination as “so vague as to be of little value” and rejected the Bentley pair’s attempts to repel interlocutories filed by former Octaviar Administration Pty Ltd (OA) and Octaviar Limited (OL) directors David Anderson and Craig White.

Barnet was singled out perhaps because the judge had heard her unfortunate cross-examination earlier in the year.

“She did not acquit herself very satisfactorily and her evidence would suggest that she had really very little day to day contact with this matter,” the judge wrote, before offering up some more conciliatory speculations.

“That may be unfair to her because it would seem that she did not realise that she was going to be called to give evidence before me and was involved in some other court case or conference immediately before she stepped into the witness box in my court at 10:38am.”

Law Society to probe solicitor over DoCA complaints

A top Sydney lawyer may be contemplating extended gardening leave after becoming the subject of a Law Society investigation.

While SiN won't disclose the solicitor's identity, there being such a thing as the presumption of innocence as well as the presumption of litigiousness, SiN can report on the nature of the allegations.

The solicitor will be investigated for, among other things, allegedly acting unfairly in relation to the transfer of real property that formed part of the assets of a property development company subject to a Deed of Company Arrangement (DoCA).

The Law Society probe comes after a series of complaints about the solicitor were made to the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner (OLSC) in March, 2013.

According to a letter from the Law Society to the complainant, the OLSC requested the Law Society proceed with the investigation late last month.

The complaints included a suggestion that the solicitor allegedly acted unfairly by obtaining a mortgage over the property instead of lodging a caveat over it.

The OLSC also agreed an investigation was warranted into a complaint that the solicitor acted unfairly by allowing the property transfer - which was to one of the two families owning shares in the company - without paying the net sale proceeds to the deed administrators.

Further, the OLSC felt that the fact the solicitor allowed the transfer to proceed without obtaining the consent of the other family owning shares in the company should also be investigated for a possible absence of fairness.

On top of all of this, a complaint that the solicitor had acted unethically by demanding a release from the complainant will also be investigated.

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Lord to lead Jirsch Sutherland's northern push

John Lord will lead  Jirsch Sutherland's
push north by opening a Brisbane office

SIFTING the harbour's revelatory silts recently, SiN learned that John Lord, the colourful Sydney liquidator who fell foul of ASIC a couple of years back, has joined Jirsch Sutherland.

Lord and the corporate regulator clashed a few years back in the wake of the Premium Collections affair.

Opting to relinquish his official liquidator status before ASIC got pushy, the former head of what was PKF's Sydney insolvency and restructuring division retired, pointed The Liquidator - his beloved aquatic pleasure vessel - north, and settled on the Gold Coast.

Now SiN hears Lord is set to open a Brisbane office, a move that represents a big step in Jirsch Sutherland's east coast expansion ambitions and a major comeback for one of the profession's more engaging characters.

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Bankruptcy's boom burbs

THE inspector general in bankruptcy released the Insolvency Trustee Service of Australia's (ITSA) latest postcode-focused analysis of personal insolvency today and as far as NSW goes, the news is not good for Blacktown.

The western Sydney suburb - along with neighbouring suburbs within the 2770 postcode - recorded a 6.1 per cent increase in bankruptcies among its residents in the 2011 – 2012 period.

This represented an increase of 10 - from 163 bankrupts the previous year - to 173. (See the data for NSW here)

No postcode can boast more bankrupts. In per capita terms it means one in 349 of those residing within the 2770 postcode has experienced their own personal financial crisis.

Pleash and Albarran dodge Suncoast bullet

Blair Pleash
Photo: Hall Chadwick

Blair Pleash and Richard Albarran have avoided censure after a Federal Court judge ruled they had acted honestly when selling four cars and a property they weren't entitled to.

In his April 18 judgement, Federal Court justice John Reeves said that while the Hall Chadwick partners had breached Corporations and Trust law statutes in the disposal of assets of Suncoast Restoration Pty Ltd, they had done so unknowingly.

Not only that, the judge lay the blame for the mistake with the insolvency operator's former solicitors and lauded the unwittingly erring pair for moving swiftly to rectify the situation as soon as they learned there was a problem. Read the judgement here.

Pleash and Albarran were appointed joint administrators of Suncoast Resoration Pty Ltd in February, 2012. At that time Suncoast Restoration was sole trustee of a superannuation fund called the Allen's Asphalt Staff Superannuation Fund.

Unbeknownst to them, the appointment of administrators or the passing of a resolution to wind the company up in liquidation automatically disqualified Suncoast Restoration from its role as sole trustee of the super fund under a clause contained in the fund's trust deed.

EXCLUSIVE: Criminal charges "on the cards" for Sydney liquidator

A Sydney-based liquidator is in strife after being accused of pilfering $90,000 to pay his tax.

The official liquidator, whose identity is subject to a non-publication order, recently failed in his application to stay a hearing before the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board (CALDB) that could see him stripped of his liquidators registration.

In a Supreme Court of NSW judgement published last week, Justice Stephen Rothman outlined how the accused, while working for Pitt Street insolvency firm Jamieson Louttit & Associates (JL&A), allegedly caused two payments from an account at JL&A to be made to himself to "discharge a tax liability".

The transactions allegedly occurred whilst the accused was working on Biseja Pty Ltd, a property developer to which Jamieson Louttit had been appointed receiver on September 4, 2008.

According to the judgement, the accused claims the payments were authorised by Louttit as part of an agreement the two had.

Burke passes Coshott baton to Prentice

BPS Recovery partner
Max Prentice. 

IT was an unusual little meeting at the offices of the Official Trustee in Bankruptcy last month.

There were two private trustees present. A third and fourth attended by proxy. And each was vying to take on the trusteeship of the bankrupt estate of Robert Gilbert Coshott.

Coshott is a former solicitor who was struck off the roll in 1997. He was bankrupted in 2008 on a creditors petition filed by Shipton Lodge Cobbity following a dispute over agistment fees.

Before the meeting on March 21 this year the Official Trustee administered the estate, having taken over from former trustee, John Burke on February 25, 2013.

Burke's resignation was approved after he told the Federal Court personal reasons had compounded the difficulty of managing “a very complex bankruptcy administration”.