Privilege – post Hastie

The New South Wales Court of Appeal decision in Hastie Group (In Liq.) v Moore1 underlines the view that disclosure of the mere existence of privileged documents to third parties will not necessarily waive privilege.

Key Facts

The liquidators of Hastie Group Ltd (In Liq.) (Hastie) had obtained orders extending the time for service of a statement of claim alleging professional negligence against Hastie’s Auditor, Deloitte (Auditor), between 2008 and 2010.

As you may recall, in 2013 ASIC wrote to all liquidators to announce the commencement of an industry-wide project to test all registered liquidators’ compliance with the requirement to publish certain notices on ASIC’s “published notices website” and to lodge forms with ASIC. ASIC refers to this initiative as the “PNW Project”.

The New South Wales Court of Appeal recently handed down an important judgment on the remuneration of registered liquidators.

Sakr concerned an appeal by Sanderson as liquidator of Sakr against an order determining his remuneration on anad valorem basis, without reference to his time attendances or hourly rate.  Due to the importance of the issues, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and Australian Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association (ARITA) appeared and made submissions on the issue.

In Power Rental Op Co Australia, LLC v Forge Group Power Pty Ltd (in liq) (receivers and managers appointed) the New South Wales Court of Appeal recently considered the 'fixtures' exclusion in Australia's Personal Property Securities Act (PPSA).

Power Rental agreed to lease turbines to Forge Group for two years.  Shortly after the lease began, Forge Group entered voluntary administration.

In this Australian case, a major creditor of the company in question alleged that it was involved in phoenix activity and offered to fund a public examination of the director provided that the creditor's solicitors would act for the liquidators in that examination.  The liquidators refused the offer and, in response, the creditor applied to have the liquidators removed.

Liquidators entitled to a fair fee

The New South Wales Court of Appeal recently handed down an important judgment on the remuneration of registered liquidators.

Failing to register security interests on the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) - a simple and straightforward exercise - can be costly.

This was amply demonstrated recently when General Electric's attempt to argue that its $60 million wind turbines were exempt from the operation of the Personal Property Securities Act (PPSA) was rejected by the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

The case

As noted in a previous post about the Sakr case[1], the worth of the work done by a liquidator can be calculated in various

This week’s TGIF considers a decision of the Victorian Supreme Court which examined the merits of appointing special purpose liquidators in circumstances where a creditor was only willing to fund investigations if the appointment was made.

What happened?

In May and June 2016, two registered education and training organisations (together, the RTOs) were placed into liquidation.

The New South Wales Supreme Court of Appeal's decision in Sanderson as Liquidator of Sakr Nominees [1] has given cause for optimism amongst insolvency practitioners. The decision confirms that the correct approach was taken by the Court inIdylic Solutions [2], bucking a trend in recent years of limiting or reducing practitioner remuneration by reference to a proportion of the funds recovered.