Crucial Ansett hearing adjourned. .By Xavier La Canna. .February 25 2002. .The Age
. .A hearing today in the Federal Court failed to ratify the sale of Ansett, after both parties agreed to adjourn the matter until Thursday at the latest.
Simon Whelan, QC, representing the administrators, told the court that "as far as the courts are concerned" both parties had not greatly progressed matters since last Tuesday, when the court case was adjourned until Thursday.
Last Thursday, the case was again adjourned, until today.
Today's adjournment was made sine die, which means it will recommence at no fixed date, but Mr Whelan said a deadline of Thursday made to creditors will be honoured.
"It represents the date by which we told creditors is the last date that we would continue risking their money in pursuit of this sale that is a going concern. So that were an application to be made, Thursday will be the last day. I can tell your honour that it won't be tomorrow, so I suppose it will be Wednesday or Thursday," he said.
Both Tesna and the administrators will try to strike an agreement for the sale before Thursday.
Mr Whelan said that while the administrators had reached an in principle agreement with Tesna, there were problems putting the deal in writing.
"There are problems being experienced in reducing those principal agreements in writing, and even if the principal parties had not decided upon the approach I have described, we wouldn't be able to proceed today because of that issue of the third party," he told the court.
While neither administrators Mark Mentha nor Mark Korda attended court today, they were expected to issue a statement later this afternoon