Topic:

Is appointing court leave required to sue a liquidator

Speakers:

Dr John Azzi, Senior Lecturer, Western Sydney University; Dr Robert Austin, Level 22 Chambers (Chair)

Venue:

Recorded at the NSW State Library in March, 2021

On 20 November 2020, the NSW Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against Rees J’s decision refusing the applicants leave to sue their court-appointed liquidator in negligence: Aardwolf Industries LLC v Tayeh [2020] NSWCA 301. In so doing, Leeming JA (Bell P agreeing) made brief in obiter remarks concerning the leave requirement 'lest they be overlooked in later cases'. Given this, the purpose of this seminar is to explore the rationale for the leave requirement and to suggest it is no longer appropriate given the national adjudication scheme established under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), which ‘deals distinctly’ with matters concerning liquidation and distributes federal jurisdiction based on whether a court (State or Federal) is a small ‘c’ court or a capital ‘C’ Court rather than whether it is the appointing court.