Norrie v Ravikulan
[2019] NZHC 2158
•4 September 2019
IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND AUCKLAND REGISTRY
I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA TĀMAKI MAKAURAU ROHE
CIV-2017-404-001625
[2019] NZHC 2158
UNDER the Companies Act 1993 BETWEEN
MARK HECTOR NORRIE as liquidator of PAKIRI INVESTMENTS LIMITED (in
liquidation)
PlaintiffAND
RAJENDRAN RAVIKULAN
Defendant
Hearing: 26 June 2018 Appearances:
Applicant in Person
R Hucker and J Tomlinson for the Respondent
Judgment:
4 September 2019
JUDGMENT OF ASSOCIATE JUDGE SARGISSON
This judgment was delivered by me on 4 September 2019 at 10.30 am pursuant to Rule 11.5 of the High Court Rules.
…………………………………
Deputy Registrar
Solicitors:
Norrie & Daughters, Auckland Hucker & Associates, Auckland
NORRIE v RAVIKULAN [2019] NZHC 2158 [4 September 2019]
[1] Pakiri Investments was placed into liquidation in February 2013. The liquidator, Mr Mark Norrie, applies under s 294 of the Companies Act 1993 to have certain payments made by the company to the respondent, Mr Ravikulan, declared as voidable in accordance with s 292 of the Act. He then seeks an order under s 295 that $88,259.19, being the total amount of the payments, together with interest, be paid by Mr Ravikulan to the company.
[2]Mr Norrie also seeks costs and disbursements on the application.
Background
[3] Pakiri Investments Ltd was a start-up company engaged in the development of software. The brains behind the company’s venture was a Mr Read. His family trust, the Read Family Trust (the Trust), was the principal funder of the venture. During the life of the company, Mr Read – the Trust’s principal trustee – spent a considerable amount of time overseas, attempting to drum up interest and investment in the company’s software.
[4] Mr Ravikulan is an accountant. He was involved with the company in several capacities, beginning in 2009 and concluding with its liquidation. He was employed for the best part of three years from May 2009 until February 2012, to provide accounting and other advice for the operations of the company. For these services he was to be paid an annual salary of $250,000, though this entitlement was stated to be contingent on the successful commercialisation of the company’s software.1 On this basis, as at the time of liquidation (33 months after his employment began) he would have been entitled to remuneration of $687,500. From February 2012 to the date of liquidation he continued to provide accounting and other advice to the company as a consultant. He also appears to have been (at some point at least) the company’s Chief Financial Officer.2 The difference in how he functioned under these titles is not totally clear and does not require conclusively determining in this dispute.
1 In respect of his salary he was, therefore, a contingent creditor.
2 The liquidator submitted that this required him to keep proper financial records. On assessing the evidence, I consider that fact is not directly relevant to the issues I have to determine in this judgment.
[5] As well as providing accounting services to the company Mr Ravikulan was a director of the company from 1 December 2010 to 8 July 2011 and, after a short break, from 14 August 2011 to 1 March 2012. Though nothing seems to turn on it, the reason why Mr Ravikulan ceased being a director for a month in the middle of 2011 is unexplained. He had signing authority for the company’s bank accounts throughout his involvement with it.
[6] In a somewhat related capacity, Mr Ravikulan also acted as a trustee for the Trust for some period around 7 August 2011 until March 2013. The particular dates are disputed by Mr Norrie.
[7] Ultimately the company failed to “commercialise” its software. An application for the company to be placed into liquidation was made by its major creditor, Adroit People Ltd, on 14 December 2012, following its failure to satisfy a judgment debt for
$66,480.30 plus costs and disbursements. The company was ultimately placed into liquidation by the Court on 15 February 2013.3
[8] The company, up until the time of liquidation, was in possession of a server, which Mr Ravikulan deposes was the property of the Trust. This server, which appears to have contained the financial records of the company, was seized by Mr Read upon the company’s liquidation.
[9] At some point after the company was put into liquidation Mr Read left the country. He has since died. All trace of the server seems to have gone with Mr Read. Mr Ravikulan says he does not know what has become of it. Mr Norrie’s own attempts to recover the server have also been unsuccessful. As such, the liquidator has had trouble in piecing together the financial position of the company, and Mr Ravikulan also claims to have had trouble substantiating his defence that monies paid to him were not for his personal benefit.
[10] The liquidation has been prolonged, as Mr Norrie has taken various steps to establish what funds might potentially be available for the limited group of creditors he regards as “genuine”. Mr Norrie regards Mr Ravikulan as a potential source for
3 Pakiri Investmnets Ltd v Adroit People Ltd [2012] NZHC 3113.
recovery. He has in his sights 19 payments Mr Ravikulan made from the company’s accounts to himself over the period of 1 July 2011 to 15 January 2013. Mr Norrie contends the payments ought to be set aside as constituting “voidable transactions” under s 292. He seeks orders for recovery of all the payments under 294. He says the payments were made when the company was unable to pay its due debts, enabling Mr Ravikulan to receive more than he would in a liquidation.
[11] Because each payment must individually be determined as a voidable transaction for the Court to exercise its jurisdiction to set it aside, and because counsel for Mr Ravikulan has raised numerous defences, not all of which apply to every payment, it is necessary to set out the payments individually. In chronological order the payments are as follows:
(a) 1 July 2011 – $10,000;
(b) 29 August 2011 – $25,000;
(c) 7 June 2012 – $2,000;
(d) 2 July 2012 – $6,000;
(e) 4 July 2012 – $8,000;
(f) 26 July 2012 – $359.19;
(g) 14 August 2012 – $4,000;
(h) 10 September 2012 – $5,000;
(i) 25 September 2012 – $4,000;
(j) 26 September 2012 – $50;
(k) 2 October 2012 – $2,000;
(l) 15 October 2012 – $6,000;
(m) 23 October 2012 – $5,000;
(n) 6 November 2012 – $2,000;
(o) 13 November 2012 – $1,250;
(p) 23 November 2012 – $100;
(q) 23 November 2012 – $1,000;
(r) 26 November 2012 – $4,000; and
(s) 15 January 2013 – $2,500.
[12]The total sum of these payments is $88,259.19.
[13] Mr Ravikulan does not dispute the various payments were made to him. In particular he accepted under cross-examination that the payments listed at (a) and (b) were payments made to him personally. But he says that in fact most of the payments the liquidator relies upon were not of that nature and were not “transactions” under the voidable transaction regime, and additionally, that other grounds exist for why the Court should not grant the relief sought.
[14] It is common ground that Mr Norrie issued two notices for the purposes of s 294(2). The second was issued as an amended notice on 5 September 2014. At the hearing it was agreed that the first notice has been withdrawn and that the application relies solely on the second. That notice refers to the 19 payments listed above.
The law
[15] Section 292 of the Companies Act applies if an insolvent transaction (including the payment of money) is entered into by a company in liquidation within the specified period (being the period commencing two years prior to the application made to the
High Court for the liquidation of the company).4 Under the section such a transaction is voidable by the liquidator and will be automatically set aside unless – as has happened in this case – the recipient of the liquidator’s notice to set aside gives written notice of objection. Notwithstanding an objection, the transaction may still be set aside under s 294 by the court on the liquidator’s application. If set aside under s 294, the Court may make orders under s 295, including an order that a person pay the company an amount equal to some or all the money that the company has paid under the transaction.
[16] For an application made in reliance on s 292 the liquidator must establish that each payment sought to be recovered:5
(a)is a transaction;
(b)is an insolvent transaction; and
(c)was made within the specified period.
[17] Whether a transaction is an insolvent transaction turns on whether the company made the payment when it was unable to pay its due debts and the payment enabled another person to receive more towards the satisfaction of a debt owed to him or her by the company than would be received in the company’s liquidation.6
[18] There is no dispute that all the payments to Mr Ravikulan that the liquidator seeks to recover were made in the specified period; in fact all but three of them were made in within the “restricted period” – the six month period before the application is made for an order of liquidation – when a company is presumed insolvent.7 The total amount paid in the restricted period was $51,259.19. The primary issues for determination therefore are whether the liquidator has demonstrated that each payment is correctly classified in fact as a “transaction”, and if a transaction, whether it is an insolvent transaction. Whether a transaction was insolvent involves multiple issues.
4 Companies Act 1993, s 292(5)(b).
5 McIntosh v Fisk [2017] NZSC 78, [2017] 1 NZLR 863 at [48].
6 Companies Act 1993, s 4.
7 Companies Act 1993, s 292(4A).
The finding depends on whether the company was insolvent when the transaction occurred and whether the transaction allowed Mr Ravikulan to recover more towards satisfaction of a debt than he is entitled to. As I will come to, this also turns on whether Mr Ravikulan recovered money in the capacity of a creditor of the company or as contemporaneous repayment for provision of services.
Discussion
[19] Counsel for Mr Ravikulan left no stone unturned in his submissions, raising numerous alternative defences. The submissions for Mr Norrie also traversed a great deal of factual and legal points. I deal with these, so far as is necessary, in the context of my discussion about the issues.
My discussion will focus on five issues. In order, I find that:
(a)The payments were “transactions” in terms of the Act;
(b)The payments on 1 July 2011, 29 August 2011 and 7 June 2012 were made to Mr Ravikulan personally;
(c)The company was not insolvent at the time of those transactions;
(d)The company was insolvent at the time of the subsequent transactions; but
(e)Those transactions did not enable Mr Ravikulan to receive more towards satisfaction of a debt than he would in the liquidation, and therefore none of the transactions were insolvent transactions. This is because he was not repaid as a creditor.
Are the 19 payments “transactions”?
[21] The term “transaction” is defined in s 292(3) and includes “certain steps by the company”. Paying money is one of the steps.
[22] Each payment to Mr Ravikulan was undoubtedly a step by the company for the purposes of s 292. Counsel for Mr Ravikulan acknowledged the two payments made in 2011 ($10,000 in July and $25,000 in August) as being transactions. But Mr Ravikulan argued the remaining seventeen payments – made between June and December 2012, except one minor payment made in January 2013 – were not transactions in the context of a creditor/debtor relationship between himself and the company. He submitted – among other things – that these payments were in substance transactions by the Trust and not the company. That was on the basis that the money used to make the payments was merely held by the company in trust for the Trust, for purposes of the company as authorised by the trustees.
[23] But it is immaterial whether the money was the company’s own money. The Court of Appeal in Anzani Investments Ltd v The Official Assignee observed that s 292 does not require that a payment be made from the company’s own property.8 The crucial point is that the payment is made by the company. In McIntosh v Fisk the Supreme Court endorsed this approach as a matter of simple statutory interpretation, giving due weight to the fact that some of the paragraphs in the definition of “transaction” specifically refer to property “of the company”, while the paragraph relating to the payment of money does not.9
[24] Even accepting for the purpose of the argument that the money used for all of the payments was held by the company in trust, Mr Ravikulan’s own position at the hearing was that he had the authority of the trustees to use the money as he did; this was to put Mr Read in funds to cover the cost of company-related activities; to reimburse himself for expenses or disbursements that he paid out personally for the company; and to pay the company’s creditors. As the Court said in McIntosh, it is hard to see why money subject to a trust to pay a trade creditor of a company would not be immune from a claw back proceeding simply because it was subject to a trust.10 The same can be said of trust monies that Mr Ravikulan was authorised to use, and did use, to fund Mr Read to carry out activities for the company and to reimburse
8 Anzani Investments Ltd v The Official Assignee [2008] NZCA 144.
9 Above n 5, at [56].
10 Above n 5, at [57].
himself. Plainly – looking at the substance of the payments – such payments were payments by the company.
[25]I find therefore that all 19 payments were transactions in terms of the Act.
Was the company insolvent at the time of the first three payments?
[26] The term “insolvent transaction” is defined in s 292 as a transaction by a company that has two limbs under s 292(2):
(a)The first, s 292(2)(a), requires that the transaction is entered into at a time when the company is unable to pay its due debts; and
(b)The second, s 292(2)(b), requires that the transaction enables another person to receive more towards satisfaction of a debt owed by the company than the person would receive, or would be likely to receive, in the company’s liquidation.
[27] The key question in relation to the requirements of s 292(2)(a) is whether, at the point in time when each payment was made to Mr Ravikulan, the company was unable to meet all its then-existing and due creditors’ claims.
[28] The two payments made in 2011 (of $10,000 and $25,000) and the 7 June 2012 payment (of $2,000) were made outside of the restricted period. That being the case, it is for the liquidator to prove the company’s insolvency at the time they were made, and that the company was unable to pay all of its accrued debts that were due for payment.
Was the company insolvent at the time of the first two payments?
[29] The onus is on Mr Norrie to prove that the company was insolvent at the relevant dates – between 1 July 2011 and 29 August 2011.
[30] Mr Norrie says the company was insolvent because of various pre-liquidation debts which were outstanding as at the date of liquidation:11
(a)$10,000 to a Mr Straub for air fare costs from 2010;
(b)$37,141.56 to a Mr Jeffcott from between 7 July 2010 and the company’s liquidation in February 2013;
(c)$11,404.96 to Kensington Swan from October 2011;
(d)$2974.64 to Focus Law from October to November 2012; and
(e)$96,226.97 to Adroit People Ltd from between May 2011 and the liquidation.
[31] Mr Hucker for Mr Ravikulan submitted that there is no evidence that Mr Norrie has adduced to suggest that the company was unable to pay its due debts as they fell due when the 2011 payments were made. On his account company debts were being paid as they fell due except for where subject to a reasonable dispute. He noted that:
(a)Following the first payment ($10,000 on 1 July 2011) the company had over $112,000 in its bank account.
(b)On his calculation, the total of the admitted creditors’ claims which were due at the date of liquidation was only $21,838.89.
(c)The company was entitled to a payment of $130,500 from a Russian joint venture partner, which then arrived on 6 October 2011, providing further funds from which to pay due debts.
[32] I agree with Mr Hucker that, at the relevant times, the company was not demonstrably insolvent.
11 That is, the admitted debts, which were treated as provable in this proceeding.
(a)As he claims, there was $112415.33 in the company’s bank account as of 1 July.
(b)Mr Ravikulan has provided e-mail evidence that Mr Jeffcott was not pursuing his claim at the relevant time. Mr Norrie notes that this claim was only not pursued because of a confidential settlement. Without further details in evidence I can only speculate as to why the debt was settled, how much of any debt was genuine and therefore how much was genuinely owing at the date of the impugned transactions.
(c)The majority of the debts listed in the statement from Adroit People Ltd are predated by the two 2011 payments. Two of the debts were disallowed by the Court of Appeal, one of which was during the relevant period. As such, the debts owed to Adroit at the relevant time appear to have been only $24,947.33.
(d)On my calculation, when counting only the debts which were due at the relevant times, the total owed by the company was in the neighbourhood of $34,000.
(e)The company on 1 July 2011 had $112,415.33 in its bank account and was on the cusp of receiving $130,500 more that it knew it was entitled to and would be able to put towards paying due debts.
[33] Taking all of this into account I am not satisfied that the company was unable to pay its debts within a reasonable time at the date of either of the 2011 payments. The liquidator’s evidence was undoubtedly vague and inconclusive. Mr Norrie bears the onus of proving the company was insolvent at the relevant time, and has simply gone to the date of the liquidation and attempted to extend the finding of insolvency backwards from then.
[34] There was also a reference by Mr Norrie to a $100 million loan from the Trust. It appears that he considers the appropriate inference that the company was always insolvent because of this outstanding debt. Again, there is nothing in evidence to
conclusively indicate what, if any, current liability the company had in respect of that loan at the time it made any of the impugned payments. It does not appear that there was any current liability. This position would be consistent with an expectation that the Trust’s return on the loan would follow the successful commercialisation of the software.
[35] Mr Norrie has partially blamed the lack of detail in his case on the absence of financial records, particularly those on the server Mr Read took to Russia. He says their absence goes to Mr Ravikulan’s credibility, given Mr Ravikulan’s various positions of responsibility meant he should have been responsible for the server and records. He considers it would be unfair for Mr Ravikulan to benefit from this lack of evidence.
[36] I do not consider the absence of records meaningfully impugns Mr Ravikulan’s credibility on this matter. His evidence throughout this proceeding has been generally consistent with the wider evidence. The instances in which it was not are more indicative, in my view, of genuine lapse of memory than intent to deceive. Mr Ravikulan has provided sufficient evidence to show that there are serious questions to be addressed before I can be satisfied that the company was insolvent at the specific times of the two payments.
The third payment
[37] The final payment prior to the insolvency was of $2,000 on 7 June 2012. It appears to have been made to Mr Ravikulan personally. However there is simply not sufficient evidence before the Court (in Ms Xu’s affidavit evidence in support of the liquidator’s case or otherwise) for me to conclude that the company was insolvent at that time. As such, Mr Norrie has not discharged his onus of demonstrating the company was insolvent at the time.
[38] The payments made on 1 July 2011, 29 August 2011, and 7 June 2012 were not insolvent transactions.
Payments during the restricted period
[39] For payments made following 17 June 2012 the onus is partly shifted for the purpose of proving an insolvent transaction. The company is presumed to have been insolvent and the onus of proving it was not insolvent falls on Mr Ravikulan. The onus remains on Mr Norrie to demonstrate that each payment caused Mr Ravikulan to recover more than he would in liquidation.12
Was the company solvent at the time of the payments during the restricted period when payments were made?
[40] Mr Ravikulan struggled to rebut the company’s presumptive insolvency throughout the restricted period. He relied on various arguments to the effect that:
(a)The “aging of creditors in the liquidation does not suggest any insolvency until after the point in time that there was a finding by the High Court that some of the Adroit debt remained outstanding”.
(b)As the High Court’s judgment regarding the debt to Adroit was not issued until 22 November 2012 and it contained a direction that payment of the judgment sum for $66,480.30 was to be paid by
12 December 2012 (plus costs and disbursements), there was no question of insolvency before 22 November or possibly even before 12 December 2012.13
(c)Even then, significant funds became available through the sale of shares in the company; and there were no other sizeable debts that could have led to the conclusion that the company was suffering financial issues “particularly with the continued influx coming from shareholder investors/subscribers”.14
12 Companies Act 1993, s 292(2)(b).
13 Pakiri Investmnets Ltd v Adroit People Ltd [2012] NZHC 3113 at [36].
14 There were no other creditors that had claims of debts that were immediately payable that could have suggested insolvency, particularly where there had been a history of support from the trustees of the Trust.
[41] I do not accept these arguments are sufficient to rebut the presumption of insolvency during the restricted period. My reasons can be stated briefly:
(a)Any suggestion that the debt to Adroit was a genuinely disputed debt fell away with the judgment. The judgment put paid to the dispute over the debt – the company’s case could not withstand the scrutiny of trial
– and showed the debt was in fact due and that $66,480.30 was owing from the outset.
(b)The fact that the judgment debt remained unpaid after the date of the judgment carries not only the inference that the company could not pay the debt post-judgment but that it could not pay it before the judgment was issued.
(c)The direction that the company was to pay the debt by 12 December 2012 did not – contrary to Mr Hucker’s submission – extend the due date for payment; it simply fixed the time for filing a liquidation application if payment was not made. As matters turned out, the application was duly filed on 14 December 2012 when payment did not happen.
(d)During the restricted period there appears not to have been a binding commitment by the trustees to continuously put the company in sufficient funds to meet its debts as they came due. The picture that emerges is one of a company with no assured stream of income or funding to pay its debts as they came due. It was substantially dependent on the Trust for funds. Mr Ravikulan says when the trust acquired funds from intermittent sales of shares it would put the company in funds. But it is apparent that when it lacked funds the company creditors were left to go begging.
(e)Mr Ravikulan has not shown what the due debts were throughout the period and whether there were funds to pay them as they became due; or whether in fact they were paid.
[42] There is therefore little of substance to rebut the presumption of insolvency. In these circumstances I can only assume the company was unable to pay its accrued due debts at each point when it made the various payments in the restricted period. I find, based on these reasons, that all of the payments in the restricted period were insolvent transactions.
Did the transactions during the restricted period enable Mr Ravikulan to receive more towards satisfaction of a debt than he would receive in the liquidation?
[43] There are two issues to address at this point. The transactions will be insolvent transactions, and able to be set aside, if they enabled Mr Ravikulan to recover more towards satisfaction of a debt than he was likely to receive in the liquidation. However, there is a difference between him recovering debt in the capacity of a creditor (which would be voidable) and him taking contemporaneous reimbursement for expenses while providing services as an agent of the company (which would not be voidable). If Mr Ravikulan was not repaid in the capacity of a creditor the transactions will not be insolvent transactions.
[44] The evidence of Andrew Gibbons, Associate General Counsel at ANZ Bank, provides documentation from the bank relating to the impugned transactions. These commence with the transaction made on 2 July 2012 and conclude with the transaction made on 15 January 2013.
[45] The payments made on 4 July 2012, 14 August 2012 and 25 September 2012 (for $8,000, $4,000 and $4,000) are documented as having been made to recharge Mr Read’s Mastercard.
[46] A number of other withdrawals made by Mr Ravikulan are claimed as also having been used to recharge Mr Read’s Mastercard. Each has a corresponding credit in the statements for Mr Read’s card. These are:
(a) 10 September 2012 – $5,000;
(b) 15 October 2012 – $6,000;
(c) 23 October 2012 – $5,000;
(d) 6 November 2012 – $2,000;
(e) 13 November 2012 – $1,250;
(f) 26 November 2012 – $4,000; and
(g) 15 January 2013 – $2,500.
[47] Mr Ravikulan’s case is that these withdrawals were also to provide money for Mr Read’s rechargeable Mastercard, rather than repayments of a loan he gave as a creditor.
[48] The submissions for Mr Norrie emphasise that Mr Read was not able to be examined, and so the liquidators have been unable to trace the money or recharge card numbers closely.
[49] Mr Norrie submits that only the transactions mentioned at [45] are listed in the ANZ documents. He submits that, for the other payments, there is inconsistency between the dates of the withdrawals by Mr Ravikulan and the deposits into Mr Read’s credit card account, as well as with Mr Ravikulan’s affidavit evidence. Often the deposits of money into Mr Read’s account predate Mr Ravikulan’s cashing of cheques to withdraw the equivalent amount of money from the company’s account by up to three days. Mr Norrie’s case is that these inconsistencies demonstrate that Mr Ravikulan was acting as a creditor – providing loans and being repaid after the fact. Mr Ravikulan explains that these gaps are because the bank’s processing could involve a three day delay – necessitating him sometimes paying Mr Read in advance as part of the regular course of business.
[50] I am satisfied that the payments listed at [46] were also in order to reimburse Mr Ravikulan for transferring money to Mr Read’s Mastercard. I do not consider that the disparity between the dates serves to make him a creditor in respect of those
payments.15 The payments Mr Ravikulan received were effectively in the form of cash on delivery for the provision of services – advancing money. The commercial reality required Mr Ravikulan to occasionally provide money up front before being reimbursed. There is nothing to suggest this was not an ordinary part of the business before the point of insolvency. The discrepancies as to the dates were only ever a matter of a few days. Rather than being loans, I consider they were effectively contemporaneous reimbursements for expenditure while providing services to the company. As such, their repayment did not serve to unduly advantage Mr Ravikulan as a creditor.16
[51] The remaining impugned transactions were made to Mr Ravikulan without corresponding credits to Mr Read. They are explained by Mr Ravikulan as follows:
(a) 2 July 2012 – $6,000.
(b)26 July 2012 – $359.19. This is recorded as a transfer to Mr Ravikulan. He says it is the reimbursement of an expense.
(c)26 September 2012 – $50. This is recorded as a transfer to Mr Ravikulan. He says it is the reimbursement of an expense.
(d)2 October 2012 – $2,000. This is recorded as a transfer to Mr Ravikulan.
(e)23 November 2012 – $100. This is recorded as a reimbursement to Mr Ravikulan.
(f)23 November 2012 – $1,000. This is recorded as a payment to Mr Ravikulan in repayment of a loan.
[52] Mr Ravikulan in his evidence and on cross-examination was consistent in characterising these payments as reimbursements for what were effectively petty
15 Though I note he was a contingent creditor in terms of salary.
16 See the discussion of Associate Judge Bell in Burgess v Raindance Company NZ Ltd [2013] NZHC 2738 at [44].
expenses on behalf of the company such as paying for phone credit. Even the 23 November payment recorded as a loan appears to be such an expense, which has simply been recorded as a loan. This appears to be consistent with the picture of how the business operated I have gleaned from the various documents before the Court.
[53] Mr Norrie has simply not presented sufficient evidence to displace the possibility that, given the commercial reality of how the business appears to have operated, these payments were also in the nature of contemporaneous reimbursements for expenses. There is sufficient evidence from Mr Ravikulan to raise that possibility, and the liquidator has not succeeded in disproving it on the balance of probabilities, either in the various documents provided to the Court or through cross-examination of Mr Ravikulan.
[54] As such, I do not consider any of the transactions to have been insolvent transactions. None of them will be voided.
Results
[55]The application for orders setting aside the impugned transactions is declined.
Costs
[56] Costs are generally not awarded against liquidators except in exceptional cases.17 My initial impression is that this is not a case for costs against the liquidator, but I reserve costs. If Mr Ravikulan wishes to submit on costs he may do so within ten working days.
Associate Judge Sargisson
17 Mana Property Trustee Ltd v James Developments Ltd [2010] NZSC 124, [2011] 2 NZLR 25.
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