Category Archives: Insolvency

For whom the Bell tolls

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Alan Bond (pre-Bell collapse, fraud conviction and bankruptcy) with a mate

There is something uplifting in properly farewelling the dead and the dying.

The Economist’s weekly obituary always floats my boat (here is its recent goodbye to Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a sample). Ditto almost anything from Nick Cave’s vast anthology of dirges (including the Sydney Opera House’s spine-tingling cover of The Ship Song). Gabrielle Faure’s Requiem is my perfect breakfast soundtrack (although it does cause my family to fling toast at me).

Maybe Master Sanderson of the Western Australian Supreme Court has similar tastes.

He has just added a nine paragraph Corporations Law judgment to the genre. It’s beautiful.

In a mere 675 words he retells the story of the Bell litigation which is now being laid to rest after 25+ exhausting years, makes some final formal orders, and even includes some wry funnies along the way.

It might well be the very first and last Corporations Act judgment you actually enjoy reading from start to finish.

Here it is: Bell Group (UK) Holdings Ltd (in liq) [2020] WASC 347.

And to give it context, here is the ABC’s take on the wider saga.

Is Covid-19 a frustrating event?

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mona lisa with face mask

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Is Covid-19 a frustrating event? To almost anyone but a contract lawyer that is a stupid question deserving a terse and emphatic response.

But any decent contract lawyer’s answer is unlikely to be short or sweeping.

In contract law, ‘frustration’ is the discharge of a contract as a consequence of some supervening and unanticipated event rendering some or all of the agreement’s obligations incapable of performance. The reported ‘frustration’ cases involve a litany of  catastrophic surprises ranging from the appendicitis-induced postponement of King Edward VII’s coronation in 1903[1], through various wars[2] to (most familiar to Australian lawyers) the legal consequences of a contractor being injuncted from working 24/7 to build Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs Railway line[3] in circumstances where the construction contract was effectively predicated on ‘round the clock’ work.

The Covid-19 coronavirus is plainly a supervening and unanticipated event. It has already caused history’s first postponement of the Olympic games. It has closed all of your local gyms and eateries. It has largely shut down Victoria’s court system.  And just when we lawyers thought things could not get worse, it is even causing surprise outbreaks of law and order. But none of these extraordinary developments alone answers the question of whether the current crisis is a frustrating event for the purposes of any particular contract.

Here is a quick refresher on the frustration of contracts:

  • When looking at whether a contract has been frustrated, don’t be too distracted by the macro picture. Focus on the specific contract in question. Has the contract become largely or completely incapable of performance because of the Covid-19 crisis? (Obvious casualties would be, say, the catering contract for a large wedding party that would now be contrary to the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008, or the contract for the screening of TV advertisements during the telecast of the now-postponed Tokyo Olympics.) Or has the contract’s subject matter simply become less attractive or more onerous to one of the parties? (Examples in this twilight zone might include the marriage celebrant’s booking for that same large wedding — after all, the wedding itself is still permitted even if the attendance of more than 2 guests is prohibited — or the screening of TV commercials (themselves still clearly legal and feasible) promoting, say, holiday packages that are neither legal nor feasible in the current circumstances.)
  • Frustration is a binary concept. Some contracts will be discharged entirely for frustration. Some will be held not to have been frustrated at all and thus will survive the supervening event entirely unscathed. There is no legal middle ground in between which allows contracts to be amended but otherwise upheld on the basis that they were semi-frustrated.
  • Extreme pessimists (and possibly also those negotiating contracts very recently) might have had the foresight to address specifically the consequences of global pandemics in their agreements. They will have no need for the doctrine of frustration and will instead be governed by the force majeure clauses (aka ‘Act of God’ clauses) to which they have agreed. As frustration applies only where the supervening event is not anticipated by the contracting parties, frustration and force majeure clauses are best thought of as alternatives to each other.
  • Frustration ends a contract as a consequence of the supervening event. By contrast, force majeure clauses are bespoke provisions. They might end the contract but will commonly suspend rather than terminate the contract or reduce rather than eliminate a party’s entitlement to payment.
  • Frustration operates independently of the parties’ acts and intentions. Force majeure clauses are authored by the parties and as such will often require action or communication for invocation.

 

Consequences of frustration

Let’s suppose a given contract is frustrated by Covid-19. What next?

Melbourne’s Formula 1 Grand Prix last month is a high profile example. Armies of large and small contractors and sub-contractors were involved in setting up for the race and its various satellite events. The race was then cancelled at the last minute because of Covid-19 concerns. Myriad contracts must then have become incapable of performance. In each instance, the question arises of who should carry the cost of the food/ entertainment/equipment that was arranged and (mainly) delivered but ultimately wasted as a consequence of Covid-19?

There is no quick and confident across-the-board answer.

And don’t expect much help from the the frustrated contracts provisions of Part 3.2 of the Australian Consumer Law and Fair Trading Act 2012. In very crude summary, it provides that money paid or payable under a frustrated contract ceases to be payable and, if paid, is recoverable by the recipient EXCEPT where a court or VCAT considers it just to order otherwise.

Note that pandemic-sized exception.

Put another way, the answer as to who is to carry the losses of a frustrated contract  is ‘black’ except when a court or VCAT considers that it should be ‘white’ or some shade of grey (or perhaps some chequered-flag pattern for Grand Prix-related events).

This legislation gets more curious still. Its open invitation to litigation appears to have been accepted in Victoria on – wait for it – only a single occasion. That case was Foley v Afonso Building Solutions [2014] VCAT 1640.

In Foley v Afonso a landowner paid a builder a $10,000 deposit on a domestic building contract. It then transpired that the building permit necessary for the project was unobtainable. The owner wanted her deposit back. The builder refused as it was not his fault that the building permit didn’t issue. So the parties went to VCAT.

Senior Member Walker concluded that the contract had been frustrated by the impossibility of getting the essential building permit. He ordered that the owner was entitled to have most (but not all) of her deposit refunded. The builder was permitted to retain the $1800 he had spent on preliminary work (such as drawings and soil tests) but not the $8000 commission he paid the agent who had secured the contract.

The decision is short. It doesn’t mention any authorities or the word ‘restitution’ but the restitutionary flavour is unmistakable.

Presumably Covid-19 will soon ensure that Foley v Afonso is superseded by many more authorities on the consequences of frustrated contracts in Victoria.

 

Conclusion 1

Covid-19’s frustrations are suffocatingly obvious to most of us. But that doesn’t mean contracts affected by the virus will necessarily be themselves frustrated.

And whatever the answer on first principles to your particular frustration query, beware of the continuing cascade of government announcements and promised regulatory changes that might take your client’s situation beyond a ‘first principles’ analysis anyway.

With this in mind, follow resources such as –

Conclusion 2

A final thought over and above frustration.

In these extraordinary times, remember that your clients’ best Covid-19 solutions might not be in the legal textbooks at all.

The unexpected and supervening event of Covid-19 might, for example, trigger the business interruption insurance that your client has forgotten it holds and make the entire frustration discussion unnecessary. Check that insurance.

And while the C-19 maelstrom continues, remember also that the banking industry (see for example this Commonwealth Bank Covid-19 support page) and the laws of insolvency have both been temporarily transformed in recent weeks. (Your clients might have more time and options available than they appreciate.)

Stay safe!

[1] Compare Krell v Henry [1903] 2 KB 740 and Hearne Bay Steam Boat Co v Hutton [1903] 2 KB 683. Both cases involved sightseers disappointed by the coronation’s postponement. In the former case the contract was held to have been frustrated by the postponement; in the latter the contract was held not to have been.

[2] See for example Fibrosia Spolka Akcjyna v Fairbairn Lawson Combe Barbour Ltd [1943] AC 32 where a pre-war contract that required an English company to deliver machinery into Poland was rendered illegal and frustrated by the outbreak of World War 2.

[3] Codelfa Construction Pty Ltd v State Railway Authority of NSW (1982) 149 CLR 337.

When winners are not grinners – who gets paid first when the winning litigant goes bust?

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Commercial litigation is often ultimately uncommercial. And when things turn really sour solicitors will often have a personal stake in the question of who is to miss out financially.

This issue arose in an insolvency context last week in a Supreme Court tussle between mega firm DLA Piper and the liquidators of their former client Windemac Pte Ltd.

Back in 2013 Windemac won a Supreme Court judgment for $312,000 plus interest and costs. It was perhaps a Pyrrhic victory as DLA’s bills to Windemac totalled almost $360,000. Windemac went bust two years later still owing DLA Piper more than $100,000.

After Windemac went into liquidation there still remained a costs order for almost $98,000 in Windemac’s favour to be enforced against the defendants. Was that money to go to Windemac’s liquidators or to the short-paid solicitors?

Associate Justice Derham held that the solicitors were entitled to an equitable lien over the proceeds of the costs order on established ‘fruits of the action’ principles and that the solicitors’ rights had priority over the claims of Windemac’s other creditors in the insolvency.

The decision contains a useful extract on solicitor’s liens for costs extracted from Elliot J’s decision in Oakley Thompson & Co v Maisano (No 2) [2015] VSC 210 at 77. Here (with citations omitted) is Elliot J’s summary:

(1)     At common law, a solicitor has a general possessory lien for all professional costs due by her or his client.  This entitles the solicitor to keep in her or his possession all property of the client which comes into the solicitor’s possession during the course of her or his professional employment until the solicitor’s costs have been paid.

(2)     A solicitor has no lien for costs over any property which has not come into her or his possession.

(3)    If a client obtains a judgment for the payment of money (including a judgment for costs),  the solicitor acquires a right to have her or his costs paid out of the money payable, such right being an equitable right to be paid.  This right is not dependent upon an order having been made to recognise the right, or upon a taxation having occurred.

(4)    If the solicitor gives notice of the right to the person who is liable to pay the money, only the solicitor, and not the client, can give a good discharge to that person for an amount of the money equivalent to the solicitor’s costs.

(5)    If the person liable to pay has notice of the solicitor’s right, but refuses to pay the solicitor, the solicitor may obtain a “rule of court” directing that the costs be paid to the solicitor and not to the client.  (In this context, a rule of court is a reference to an order or a direction of the court.)

(6)    If the client and a judgment debtor make a collusive arrangement in order to defeat the solicitor’s right, the court will enforce that right against the judgment debtor notwithstanding the arrangement and notwithstanding that no notice of the solicitor’s claim has been given to the judgment debtor prior to the arrangement.

Associate Justice Derham’s decision is DLA Piper Australia v Official Receiver of Singapore (as liquidators of Windemac Pte Ltd) [2017] VSC 216.

The lesson from this? Solicitors’ liens are good and can trump a liquidator. But solicitors getting their money into trust up-front on account of fees is even better. After all, the solicitors here might have chalked up a win but they still took a haircut on the fees which had been outstanding to them for over four years.

WA court bins stat demands, orders indemnity costs and calls the cops

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Some obscure judgments deserve a wider audience.

Master Sanderson of the Western Australia Supreme Court delivered one such gem in April in Rohanna Pty Ltd v Nu-Steel Homes Adelaide Pty Ltd [2013] WASC 109.

Some scene-setting first.

In Christmas week 2012 the plaintiff received two statutory demands from the defendant. The parties had never had any prior contact with each other and yet the demands totalled almost $220,000. Both stat demands were ultimately set aside by Master Sanderson. In the interim the defendant was represented in correspondence by a South Australian solicitor who did not file a formal appearance (Mr Nicholls) and in Court by a non-lawyer (Mr Pearse). Mr Nicholls had offered to settle the matter on the basis that the plaintiff pay the defendant’s costs of $25,000. He also remarked upon the need to advertise any winding up application which might follow if the plaintiff didn’t stump up that loot.

Master Sanderson was scathing. Here are some highlights from a stinging judgment.

11.   In further support of its application the plaintiff filed a second affidavit …. The purpose of this affidavit was to demonstrate the solvency of the plaintiff. A mere glance at this affidavit would be enough to convince even the economically illiterate the plaintiff was solvent. Indeed it shows the plaintiff as a massively successful commercial enterprise. But that was not enough for Mr McNamara.

 

       ….

 

17.   All of these matters can then be aggregated. First, the defendant served the statutory demands without any prior consultation with the plaintiff. If it had a genuine belief there was a debt owed it would have been reasonable to write to the plaintiff, make a claim and explain the basis of that claim. That was not done. Instead the demands were sent by post and arrived on the Thursday before Christmas. If ever there was a time when it was difficult to deal expeditiously with a demand which required action within 21 days, that was it.

 

 ….

 

20.   Fourthly, faced with clear evidence of the solvency of the plaintiff the defendant determined to press on. No reasonable party properly advised would have done so.

 

21.   Fifthly, the correspondence suggests an attempt to embarrass the plaintiff by advertising the fact of a winding up application. There was no need to refer to the advertising of a winding up application in the way Mr McNamara did. The letter strongly suggests the defendant was looking to force the plaintiff into a compromise to serve its own purposes.

 

22.  Sixthly, the defendant actually issued a winding up application. This was done prior to the application to set aside the demands being heard. It must have been clear there was a live issue as to whether the application to restrain the defendant would succeed. … Once again it looks as though the defendant was attempting to pressure the plaintiff.

 

23.   Seventhly, no appearance to the application to set aside the demands was ever lodged. Mr McNamara in his correspondence said he had been retained by the defendant. As late as 28 February 2013 he wrote to the plaintiff’s solicitors on behalf of the defendant. At no time did Mr McNamara indicate his instructions had been terminated and at no time did he give any indication he would not appear at the hearing of the matter on 7 March 2013. Perhaps the defendant was concerned if it did enter an appearance a costs order might be made against it. Or perhaps there was some other reason no appearance was entered. But it does suggest the defendant never took seriously the prospect it could successfully resist the plaintiff’s application.

 

24.   Finally, there is the offer to settle on payment of $25,000 for costs. It may be that Mr McNamara is one of South Australia’s leading corporate lawyers. If that is so, this case does not represent his finest hour. But even assuming high competence on the part of Mr McNamara there is no possible way the defendant’s costs could have amounted to $25,000. No appearance was filed, no affidavits in opposition to the application were lodged, it would appear submissions to be made on behalf of the defendant were drawn by Mr Pearse and the totality of Mr McNamara’s involvement was three or four letters. Really this demand for ‘costs’ is no such thing. It was tantamount to extortion.

 

25.   … This is a case where indemnity costs should be awarded and the only question is who should pay those costs. Mr Pearse will have 14 days from the publication of these reasons to make submissions as to why he should not pay the costs personally.

 

26.   I intend to refer these reasons to the Western Australian Police Service for such action as they deem necessary in relation to Mr Pearse. I will also refer a copy of these reasons to the authorities in South Australia who regulate the legal profession to take such action as they deem appropriate in relation to Mr McNamara.

 

Lessons from this case? Many.

But the very first that occurs to me is that the Wild West’s legal system might have been unfairly maligned by the late Robert Hughes (as recorded in my post here on his passing).

Charge and countercharge of overcharging in Sydney

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Is the expression “excessive legal costs” tautological?

Cynics might say so but not our regulators.

Section 4.4.4(b) of the Legal Profession Act (Vic) makes the “charging of excessive legal costs in connection with the practice of law” (surely a further tautology) conduct capable of constituting either ‘unsatisfactory professional conduct’ or ‘professional misconduct’.

New South Wales’ equivalent legislation saw former high-flying personal injuries soli Russell Keddie struck off last month for just such professional misconduct.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald account here Keddie’s bill of $819,000 to his paraplegic client was $215,00 too high.

Keddie is unlikely to miss his ticket – he retired before he was rubbed out.

Perhaps with a view to the many similar claims against him and his former firm, he also declared himself bankrupt last month.

Keddie’s sagging public reputation is unlikely to be assisted by reports (like further SMH yarns here and here) that before his bankruptcy he transferred his half share in two properties worth a combined $6 million to his wife for – you guessed it – a single dollar each.

The SMH has given the Keddies story a lot of air since 2008 but in Victoria only readers of the Oz are likely to have heard of it.

Keddie’s eponymous firm was once NSW’s leading personal injury plaintiffs’firm. Slater & Gordon took it over for a reported $32 million in 2010. By then Keddies had been been already in strife with NSW’s Legal Services Commissioner for at least 4 years.

Radio National revisited the Keddies saga in Background Briefing last Sunday, 22 July 2012 – audio here and transcript here.

Some highlights from the ABC’s retelling:

  • Aggrieved Keddies clients have already racked up approximately $4 million in judgments against the firm’s three former partners;
  • The ABC speculates that the total overcharging judgments might eventually top $11 million;
  • Enforcement of those judgments is likely to be problematic. Of the three ex-Keddies partners sued, one is already bankrupt and the other two have reportedly had their assets frozen;
  • The overcharging claims against Keddies have been spear-headed by solicitor Stephen Firth with the apparent assistance of some ex-Keddies Deep Throat(s);
  • Coincidentally, Stephen Firth is himself defending several overcharging claims. The plaintiffs’ solicitor in those cases? None other than ex-Keddies partner (and defendant to many Firth-issued overcharging writs) Tony Barakat.

Firth has been forthright in his pursuit of Keddies – see his website here where he boasts of 11 wins totalling $1.5 million in Keddies cases for the month of April alone.

And Barakat is not bashful either. See his comments to The Australian here about the claims against Firth.

Only in Sin City?

 

 

Safeguard your Mareva injunction with a PPSA registration

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I have just put the finishing touches to a seminar paper I am delivering this week on the Personal Property Securities Act 2009.

My paper is not as unwieldy and dry as the PPS Act itself (is anything?) but I wouldn’t call it sexy either. I will post it on its own discrete (ie separately tabbed) page in this blog after the seminar.

For an extremely short synopsis of the PPS Act generally see my post of 10 February 2012 (which you can access by simply following the date prompts below the mugshot in the right-hand margin of this page.)

But let me take you straight to what might be the highlight for general commercial litigators with Mareva-type injunctions in their armoury (and they should be in every armoury).

Once Mareva orders (aka ‘asset preservation orders’ and ‘freezing orders’) and some analogous orders are obtained from any Australian court or tribunal it seems they can be ‘perfected’ by registration on the PPS Register.

Such registration will effectively advertise the existence of your client’s Mareva injunction to the world at large. That ‘perfection’, among other things, should constructively warn off third parties who might otherwise purchase or lend against the property in breach of a court order restraining the use and/or disposal of that property.

This new tool lies buried in reg 5.3(c) of the PPS Regulations. I am not aware of it having been used since the PPSA regime started on 30 January 2012.

Is this history waiting to be made or has it been made already?

Anyone?

PPSA in 500 words

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The Commonwealth Personal Property Securities Act 2009 came into operation on 30 January 2012. It comprises 300 + pages (never mind the regulations) and is not light reading.

Can it be summarized in just two A4 pages? Let’s try.

The PPSR Act establishes something that might be crudely likened to a Torrens title registration scheme for tangible and intangible personal property. It is modeled on existing legislation in New Zealand and Saskatchewan.

“Personal property” does not mean domestic or consumer property (although that is within its scope too). “Personal” means personal as opposed to real property.  Most businesses will be affected (For example who has title to the hire-purchased photocopier in a solicitor’s office if the soli goes broke? What if the soli stays solvent and the photocopier supplier goes bust?)

The registration system is national, internet-based, administered by the Insolvency & Trustee Service of Australia (ITSA) and accessible 24/7.

In insolvency situations the register will generally determine the title of the liquidator / trustee in bankruptcy to personal property in the possession of the insolvent company / individual that might otherwise be claimed by a financier, unpaid supplier etc.

Example:

Say ABC Company goes into liquidation while in possession of:

  • vehicles it has leased from X bank;
  • widgets from Y supplier which have not yet been paid for and are subject to retention of title clauses; and
  • an entire business ABC purchased from Z on vendor terms and on which there are still instalments outstanding.

In this example X, Y and Z would formerly probably have had good title as against the liquidator to their particular property in ABC Company’s possession. But no longer. Under the new regime the liquidator will likely be entitled to seize and sell each of these assets as part of ABC Company’s insolvent estate unless the rival claimants have registered a security interest in them.

Registration of a given security interest will cost $5 a time.

Failure to make that $5 investment might cost unlucky punters literally millions – see Waller v New Zealand Bloodstock Limited [2005] NZCA 254; [2006] 3 NZLR 629. In that case the owners of a $2 million racehorse leased it to a stud. The stud’s financier repossessed the stud (and with it, the horse). The horse’s owners had not registered their security interest in their  horse under New Zealand’s equivalent of the Australian legislation. They lost their $2 million chaff-burner to the liquidator as a result.

Now consider the lawyers –

  • Clients’ standard terms of trade agreements might require revision. Previously effective retention of title clauses in supply agreements might fail under the new regime unless supported by registration of the resulting security interest;
  • Clients who are not advised of the new regime by their lawyers are likely to be gravely miffed if they lose their assets to their customer’s liquidators as a consequence;
  • Professional negligence claims against lawyers will inevitably result – see for example K-Auto Trading NZ v McGurie [2008] NZHC 94

After a remarkably long gestation the Personal Property Security Act 2009 is now operational law. The new regime includes a two year introductory transition period (but why defer getting things right until 2014?)

Paul Duggan

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Paul Duggan is a commercial litigation barrister based in Melbourne, Australia.

Since 1996 he has advised and appeared in most types of business-to-business and business-to-customer disputes – commercial and domestic building matters, commercial and retail leasing disputes, insolvencies, franchises, partnerships, insurance, professional negligence, sales of land, Corporation Act matters and trade practices disputes to name a few. Although Paul has represented governments, major public companies, insurers, Lloyds syndicates and private individuals his clients are predominantly small and medium enterprises contemplating or engaged in litigation in the Victorian Supreme Court, County Court or VCAT.

Paul also practises in the federal jurisdictions and interstate.

Paul’s clerk is Gordon & Jackson.

Liability limited by a scheme approved under the Professional Standards Act 2003.