Australia, June 30 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on May 30:

1. By Originating Process filed on 7 March 2025, the Plaintiffs, Mr Alan Walker in his capacity as liquidator ("Liquidator") of Quasar Constructions (Commercial) Pty Ltd (in liq) ("QCC") and QCC seek relief against Mr James Crawford, Crawford 6 Pty Ltd ("C6PL") and Brookhollow Investments Pty Ltd ("Brookhollow"). By way of background, the First Defendant, Mr Crawford, was the sole director of QCC. The Second Defendant, C6PL, is the trustee of the Quasar Commercial Trust and the sole shareholder of QCC and was the holding company of QCC within the meaning in s 9 of the Act, and Mr Crawford was also the sole director and shareholder of C6PL. The Third Defendant, Brookhollow, is the trustee of the Brookhollow Unit Trust; Mr Crawford was a director of Brookhollow until 5 June 2024 when he was replaced by Mr Greg Ross, an executive of QCC. QCC leased premises from Brookhollow and there were also loan arrangements between QCC and Brookhollow. Prior to entering into voluntary administration on 23 September 2024, QCC carried on a commercial construction business, which involved substantial projects. It had a significant number of employees and substantial unpaid employee entitlement claims in respect of those employees.

2. This hearing concerns the Liquidator's application for final orders under s 1323(1) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ("Act"), or alternatively relief in the Court's equitable jurisdiction, in the nature of freezing orders against Mr Crawford, C6PL and Brookhollow. Section 1323(1) of the Act broadly allows the Court to make an order to prohibit transfer of money, financial products or other property in specified circumstances including, relevantly, where an "investigation is being carried out under [the Act] in relation to an act or omission by a person, being an act or omission that constitutes or may constitute a contravention of this [Act]". There is a question in issue in this application as to whether that requirement is satisfied here. Section 1323(3) of the Act relevantly provides that, where an application is made to the Court for an order under s 1323(1), the Court may, if in its opinion it is desirable to do so, before considering the application, make an interim order of the kind applied for that is expressed to have effect pending the determination of the application. I will consider the scope of this section further below.

3. Mr Parrish appeared for the Plaintiffs in this application. Mr McDonald represented all of the Defendants, and made common submissions as to some matters, although Mr Crawford and C6PL on the one hand and Brookhollow on the other were represented by separate solicitors.

Chronology and affidavit evidence

4. I now set out a chronology of events, which I have drawn from the parties' joint chronology, the affidavit evidence and the documents which were tendered and to which I was taken in submissions.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/1971b34d53e7adec35bcf4d4)

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