Creditors of Griffin Coal are no closer to an insolvency appointment, as the clock runs down on customer Bluewaters’ rights to step in and run the miner.
Creditors of Griffin Coal are no closer to an insolvency appointment, as the clock runs down on customer Bluewaters’ rights to step in and run the miner.
Last week, Griffin headed to court to stop Bluewaters appointing KordaMentha as corporate controllers, after coal supplies fell short by 400,000 tonnes.
It later emerged that a senior creditor of the Collie coal miners, understood to be ICICI, was making its own move to appoint insolvency personnel to the business.
That was amid claims of a $US1 billion debt.
Fresh correspondence received just minutes before this afternoon’s court hearing from Norton Rose Fulbright partner Jeffery Black confirmed the security trustee had now signed and circulated the appointment documents.
But Griffin lawyer Konrad de Kerloy conceded the miner did not know whether they had been officially executed, leaving the two parties in the same limbo they were in on Monday.
He requested the matter be stood over until the middle of next week and that the orders in place and Bluewaters’ undertaking not to act be extended until that time.
Bluewaters lawyer Joseph Garas told the court it was happy for the matter to be adjourned and to sign off on a continued undertaking, provided the appointment of Deloitte occurred.
But he warned that further steps would need to be taken next week if an appointment had not yet been made, highlighting the 20-day time limit for Bluewaters to bring the action would expire on September 23.
“Depending on when that appointment occurs, we may need to move on, particularly given the time constraints,” Mr Garas said.
The matter is expected to return to court next Wednesday, September 14, provided an appointment has not yet been made.
