The Commissioner has been successful before the Supreme Court of Victoria in seeking declaratory relief to the effect that a company (“Glen”) was the beneficial owner of 4 shares in another company (“Jinacan”).
- Jinacan owned commercial property valued at some $8.5m.
- The reason the Commissioner sought the orders was that the Commissioner was an unsecured creditor of Glen in respect of a debt of over $500,000, and he claimed that a declaration of trust made by Glen over the Jinacan shares in favour of another company, prior to Glen being placed into liquidation, was ineffective.
In making the orders sought, the Court found that the relevant declaration of trust was void, invalid and of no effect. In doing so, it accepted the Commissioner’s evidence that contemporaneous corporate documents established that Glen remained the beneficial ownership of the shares in Jinacan, and that the defendants had failed to displace that evidence.
However, the Court found that the “Deputy Commissioner” was not the proper party to seek the relief, but that the defendants would not suffer any prejudice by the substitution of the “Commissioner” as plaintiff.
(DCT v Haritos & Ors [2014] VSC 379, Supreme Court of Victoria, Sloss J, 15 August 2014.)