Blue Chip liquidators' $750k claw back attempt heads to court

Sir Bob Jones.

The liquidators of a crumbled wing of the Blue Chip empire are trying to claw back about $750,000 from multi-millionaire Sir Bob Jones' company and the parties are due to square off in the High Court next March.

The Blue Chip group of companies failed in 2008 owing $84 million to investors - many of them elderly - and the following year Jones bankrupted co-founder Bob Bangerter, saying what those in the property scheme had "done to those old people is appalling".

As well as bankrupting Bangerter, Jones' company -- Robt Jones Holdings -- also pursued the-then last surviving business in the Blue Chip group for unpaid rent, rates and cleaning costs.

Northern Crest Investments, part of the Blue Chip group, leased a floor in a central Auckland office tower from Robt Jones Holdings but up-and-left from the premises in August 2008, half way through a six-year lease.

Robt Jones Holdings - which calls itself New Zealand's largest private CBD office building owner - got a High Court judgment in September 2009 against Northern Crest for some $300,000 - which was paid after liquidation proceedings were brought.

The now-failed firm then settled other debts with the property's mogul company before moving operations across the Tasman in November 2010.

Liquidators from PKF Corporate Recovery & Insolvency, appointed in 2011, have since identified around $750,000 of payments from Northern Crest to Robt Jones Holdings they believe are voidable.

PKF's latest report on Northern Crest say the liquidators filed a notice to set aside the payments in question, which Robt Jones Holdings objected to.

PKF then applied to the High Court at Auckland for these transactions to be set aside, which their report says is due to be argued next March.

While the parties are due to square off over the issue next year, PKF's lawyer Dan Hughes said the action could be impacted by a decision on voidable transactions expected from the Supreme Court soon.

Under the law, liquidators are able to claw back payments made up to two years before they are appointed if the payments at issue were made when the company was unable to pay its due debts.

The idea behind voidable transactions is to avoid one creditor getting the benefit of funds and to allow them to be shared proportionally amongst those owed money.

PKF says Northern Crest owes $4.8 million the receivers of failed finance company Lombard as secured debt.

The liquidators have also accepted claims from 17 unsecured creditors for $10.2 million.