The Court held that entries in a company's financial statements recording unpaid present entitlements from a trust constitute prima facie evidence of debt under s 1305 of the Corporations Act, and that a trustee's recording of such amounts as liabilities amounts to an admission giving rise to an action for money had and received, following Chianti v Leume and Fischer v Nemeke. The default judgment was varied downward from $846,834 to $731,876 to reflect a discrepancy in the pre-December 2009 UPE amount established by the trust's own financial statements, but the application to set aside was otherwise dismissed for failure to establish a prima facie defence on the merits. On s 477(2B) of the Corporations Act, the Court held that the provision concerns long-term agreements and does not bear on a liquidator's power to commence proceedings, and that even if a costs agreement were invalid for non-compliance, this would not render the proceedings themselves invalid.
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