Employees of 17 abandoned companies in the 12 month period ending 30 September 2018 will now be able to access the Fair Entitlements Guarantee (FEG) scheme following ASIC’s appointment of liquidators.
The 17 abandoned companies owe at least 32 employees more than $570,000 in employee entitlements.
The FEG is a legislative safety net funded by the Australian government designed to assist employees recover owed unpaid employee entitlements because of their employer company’s liquidation or bankruptcy.
However, some employees owed entitlements cannot access FEG because the companies’ directors are either unable to discharge their duties or abandoned their insolvent companies without putting them into liquidation. ASIC’s appointment of liquidators facilitates access to FEG for these employees.
The appointment of liquidators also facilitates a full and proper investigation into the reasons why the companies failed and allows recovery of any voidable or unreasonable director-related transactions that can potentially be returned to creditors.
Nine of the 17 liquidator appointments were made from a new panel of liquidators including, Andrew Heard of Heard Phillips, Simon Miller of Clifton Hall, James Imray of Rodgers Reidy, John Goggin of Worrells, Mitchell Herrett of RSM, Michael Billingsley of Deloitte, Michael De Rooy of FTI Consulting, Paul Allen of FTI Consulting, and Shabnam Amirbeaggi of Crouch Amirbeaggi.
Prior to February 2018, ASIC made eight appointments under the previous panel, including, Jason Tracy of Deloitte (appointed twice), Leigh Prior of Pitcher Partners, Simon Wallace-Smith of Deloitte, Tracy Knight of Bentleys, Vaughan Strawbridge of Deloitte, Ross Blakeley of FTI Consulting, and Steven Hernyk of Deloitte.
ASIC first used its powers in 2013 and to date has wound up 110 companies.
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