Liquidators
of Christchurch company Chesterfield Preschools will be relieved director Therese
Anne Sisson has been declared bankrupt.
They have faced a frustrating saga dealing with her in attempts to wind
up the company’s affairs.
Early childcare
business Chesterfields Preschools Ltd ceased trading in 2004 following a tax
dispute according to liquidator PwC’s first report. Eleven years later, Inland
Revenue put the company into liquidation.
Company Office records show Ms Sisson became a director ten months
before liquidation. She alleges
maladministration by Inland Revenue caused the company’s failure. In a series of court applications,
Chesterfield challenged both the debt claimed by Inland Revenue and the
liquidation order itself. A Court of
Appeal hearing on Chesterfield’s liquidation order is imminent.
In the interim, liquidator
PwC has found Ms Sisson unhelpful.
Company records have gone missing.
They were either destroyed in the Christchurch earthquakes or
inadvertently thrown out by a relative during a shift, she said.
Chesterfield’s liquidators bankrupted Ms Sisson for non-payment of a $7853 court costs order unpaid
following earlier litigation by her involving the company. She challenged the bankruptcy proceeding,
first by demanding that the judge hearing the application stand down from the
case because she had “lost all confidence” in him, and secondly, arguing the
bankruptcy application should be stayed otherwise it would prejudice the
imminent Court of Appeal hearing over Chesterfield’s liquidation.
Associate judge Osborne
declined her request he stand down. The
various rulings and judgments made previously, while numerous and for the most
part against Ms Sisson’s position, have simply required the court to apply
relevant statutes and well settled principle, he said. There is no basis to suggest actual or apparent
bias.
Bankruptcy will not
impact on the pending appeal, he ruled. Should
the Court of Appeal overturn Chesterfield’s liquidation order, she still owes
Chesterfield $7853 and that debt is unpaid.
Chesterfields
Preschools Ltd v. Sisson – High Court (23.06.17)
17.073