Federal Court removes KordaMentha as voluntary admins for Keystone Asset Management

Representatives from Deloitte have been appointed instead

Federal Court removes KordaMentha as voluntary admins for Keystone Asset Management

The Federal Court has removed KordaMentha’s Scott Langdon, Michael Korda, and John Mouawad as the voluntary administrators for Keystone Asset Management.

The 5 September decision represented a win for ASIC, which had made the application after the appointments were brought to its attention on 28 August.

ASIC indicated its concern that the appointment of two different sets of insolvency practitioners could give rise to work being unnecessarily duplicated, using up the funds provided to investors and creditors. ASIC also suggested that the two groups could disagree on the extent of their powers and responsibilities.

In its order, the Federal Court named Deloitte’s Jason Tracy and Lucica Palaghia as the new voluntary administrators. They were previously appointed as receivers and managers of Keystone Asset Management’s property by the court on 27 August.

Keystone Asset Management is responsible for the Shield Master Fund (Shield). As receivers, Tracy and Palaghia are tasked with:

  • securing the assets held by Keystone Asset Management in its capacity as responsible entity for Shield and as trustee for certain other funds
  • determining how Shield investor funds were utilised by Keystone Asset Management
  • recovering Shield investor funds
  • reporting to the court within 28 days the solvency of Keystone Asset Management and the potential return to creditors and investors if Keystone Asset Management and Shield faced winding up