So if Air Ngukurr owes creditors $500K, is this a series of big debts, or just a couple ? It would be interesting to see who the creditors
are and how much each are owed.
If the creditors are suppliers or financiers, then they will be after their $. Creditors such as the fuel company and the engineers can begin a Creditors winding up of the company which includes appointing their own Liquidator who works for
them and will go after any funds and anyone who accidently misplaced them.
This prevents the company directors appointing their own Receiver/Liquidator who may not be so keen to chase money.
If the company does appoint it's own Receiver/Liquidator, then the majority of creditors can just bring along their own Receiver/Liquidator to the first creditor's meeting and vote off the company-appointed one. Provided of course, that they have got their act into gear and agree to work together (and one has not been bought off by the company).
Interesting point about financiers - if the company is going under and they are owed money, they will often happily repo the productive assets under finance, here it would be aircraft, and give them to someone close to the action to keep them working and the repayments going.
On the other hand, if the majority of the creditors are internal ones, ie., company directors and/or shareholders, and the debts owing are loan repayments or other similar concoctions, etc., then its a different story. Here, its really up the NT Supreme Court to appoint a Liquidator if it feels that a Liquidator appointed by the company would not be impartial.
Paper records that get burned in fires and hard disks that get pinched don't really obscure the money in / money out equation, since it is documented in other places than a company's "books".
Cash money that gets 'shifted' has to get turned into physical assets at some point. Whether those then get grabbed by a companys Liquidator, or taxed by the ATO as "undeclared income" from some mystery source, is the next question.
Those are some of the considerations in a liquidation or other less drastic form of external management of an insolvent company.
What has to be remembered is that the pace of the process is determined by the Corporations Act 1989, ie., the law, but the extent of this process is entirely up to the individuals on each side of the fence.
The external creditors and NT Govt auditors would be the ones driving any liquidation / accounting process. The important thing to remember is that the cavalry does not come over the hill to automatically deal out the kind of "justice" a lot of people seem to want in situations like this. Nothing is automatic; it all has to be based on good solid facts
plus have some productive end
plus the people involved need the willpower and time to make the process happen since it runs on human energy not the weight of the law.
The best way to make it all happen is for all the creditors and other "non-company" people concerned to sit around with each other, assemble all their facts, and get a
common purpose and familiarity with each other.
Facts ? Every single one documented on paper alongside the means to verify it.
The icing on the cake is to be able to give the cops enough info for them to easily turn it into enough evidence to book someone.
Old Roberty 'ere, fishin in his boat down Yella Water....... see yas !