I am posting this website update to advise noteholders and shareholders of a new application against me as the Liquidator of Babcock & Brown (BBL).
Background information
As some of you know, over the course of the liquidation to date, Bookarelli has funded five previous Court proceedings against me, in my capacity as Liquidator of BBL (the details of these five previous Court proceedings were covered in my December 2024 update and so are not repeated again here).
Notably, Bookarelli pursued the first four proceedings all the way to the High Court (losing each time) and in the case of the fifth proceeding, the Court has ordered that it be permanently stayed because its commencement was an abuse of process.
The first proceeding (the Grant-Taylor Proceeding) has been concluded.
In relation to the second, third and fourth proceedings (the Masters, Broome and Wilhelm Proceedings) a lump sum costs award in my favour was ordered on 21 November 2024, which was to be quantified by the Court’s Referee. These costs will be sought from Bookarelli at first instance, and if not paid by them, will be sought from the individual shareholder applicants that were parties to each of the above proceedings. Bookarelli has since filed an application urging the Court not to adopt the Referee’s Report, and my
submissions in favour of the adoption of the Report was filed on 3 June 2025. I
am presently awaiting the Court’s decision as to whether its Referee’s Report
will be accepted or not, which I do not expect to be too far away.
In relation to the fifth proceeding (the Pain Proceeding), a permanent stay of proceedings and costs were awarded in my favour. I am currently seeking to agree those costs with Bookarelli (as I am required to do by the Court’s Practice Notes) however, as those discussions are sensitive, confidential and ongoing, I cannot say too much more about this process at the current time.
Zsadony Proceedings – New Proceedings
As noted in my December update, late last year I received new proof of debt claims (which were not connected to any of the previous claims) and in January this year I received some more proof of debt claims. These new proofs of debt were rejected by me on 19 February 2025 after careful consideration of the evidence provided by the claimants.
On 6 March 2025, a sixth Court proceeding was commenced (led by the first plaintiff, Julius Zsadony) seeking to reverse my decision to reject the new proof of debt claims and to have them admitted in the winding up of BBL. This sixth proceeding (the Zsadony Proceeding) is effectively identical to the five proceedings mentioned above, save that the plaintiffs are now basing their case on two instances of non-disclosure (instead of the previous five) and are also advancing a “no transaction” case, being that the plaintiffs would not have purchased shares or notes in BBL (or would have sold the shares or notes they held) had disclosure of certain information been made on 8 November 2008 and 8 December 2008.
I am defending the Zsadony Court Proceeding.
Queries
Should you have any queries regarding the above, please contact us by email to bandbltd@deloitte.com.au
