ob体育 has disqualified former building and construction industry director Declan James Murphy, of Palm Cove, Queensland, from managing corporations for the maximum period of five years due to his involvement in the failure of three companies.
Between November 2011 and March 2019, Mr Murphy was a director of three companies in the building and construction industry:
- Mayford Contracting Pty Ltd (ACN 154 386 991);聽聽聽聽聽聽
- Mayford Carpentry Pty Ltd (ACN 146 814 726); and
- HSEA Group Pty Ltd (ACN 613 382 004).
ob体育 found that Mr Murphy acted improperly and failed to meet his obligations as director when he:
- failed to ensure Mayford Contracting and Mayford Carpentry complied with their tax obligations;
- caused or allowed the transfer of funds from Mayford Contracting and Mayford Carpentry bank accounts into personal accounts; and
- failed to prevent the companies from incurring debts when they were insolvent.
At the time of ob体育鈥檚 decision, the three companies owed a combined total of $10,739,423 to unsecured creditors, including $562,000 in employee entitlements and $5,216,904 to the Australian Taxation Office.
Mr Murphy has been an undischarged bankrupt since 13 March 2019.
In disqualifying Mr Murphy, ob体育 relied on supplementary reports lodged by Mayford Contracting鈥檚 liquidator, Joanne Dunn of FTI Consulting and Mayford Carpentry鈥檚 liquidator, Steven Staatz of Vincents.聽 ob体育 assisted Ms Dunn and Mr Staatz to prepare their reports by providing funding from the Assetless Administration Fund.
Mr Murphy is disqualified from managing corporations until 4 March 2027.
Mr Murphy has the right to seek a review of ob体育鈥檚 decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Background
Section 206F of the Corporations Act allows ob体育 to disqualify a person from managing corporations for a maximum period of five years if, within a seven year period, the person was an officer of two or more companies, and those companies were wound up and a liquidator provides a report to ob体育 about each of the company鈥檚 inability to pay its debts.
ob体育 also maintains a banned and disqualified persons register that provides information about people who have been disqualified from:
- involvement in the management of a corporation;
- auditing self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs); or
- practising in the financial services or credit industry