bmg litigation update, page-12

This matter has been back in court the last few days so I thought I'd post another update.

With respect to Friday's court events (13th), a link to the judgement is here: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2012/374.html

This was from the Judge who heard the case.

In short:

* Hillam is/was trying to sell BMG's interest in Hawsons, but evidence is that it is unlikely that any one would buy BMG's interest in Hawson's while liquidation order is stayed (on hold). Judge dismissed all applications to restructure the Board to assist such a sale occuring therefore unlikely BMG will be able to sell its interest in Hawsons.
* At this stage, they are unlikely to have the appeal heard before June. Until recently, they had not been preparing for the appeal on an urgent basis, but that seems to have changed.
* Stay of orders from 27 February continue until further notice - therefore order winding up BMG on hold and will probably be so until the outcome of the appeal.

My thoughts after reading this was that BMG is unlikely to have a liquidator appointed until after May 15th.

The outcome from today's Court events seem a little more interesting. Orders available from Comcourts portal: https://www.comcourts.gov.au/file/Federal/P/NSD379/2012/actions. Judgement (which has the reasons for the orders not yet available).

The first order is for an application for leave to appeal and a notice of appeal in the form required by the Judge, not sure exactly why it needs to be in the form required by the Judge. But must be filed by 2pm tomorrow. Given both time and day specified, this for once may be a real deadline.

The interesting part for me is that it this is to be before the Full Court (not just a single judge) with respect to the application for leave to appeal. This will be heard this Thursday 19th April.

I assume that the notice of appeal is in respect to the overall appeal, and not a new appeal such as appealing about the restructure of the board of BMG to allow a sale of their interest in Hawsons.

If they are not allowed leave to appeal, then it may be all over. This is starting to look interesting again.

Also, if the decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court says Hillam cannot appeal, the only place to appeal from there will be to the High Court - and that won't happen by 15 May.

If a liquidator is appointed to BMG prior to 15 May, then this may trigger a default clause in the JV agreement between CAP and BMG that was mentioned in an earlier judgement. However, CAP may choose not to exercise that option if it is less favourable than the 15 May default (no real difference in timing now). The one thing that appointing a liquidator would mean is that Hillam is out of the picture and CAP would be dealing with the liquidator with respect to acquiring BMG's interest in the JV.

Hope that helps bring you up to date. Thanks for past feedback and thumbs up. Happy to share my research where helpful to others.