Fmr Administrator (Bryan Hughes) was defensive, and also had a lot to say, despite being only an observer. You could tell that Fmr and Current Administrators had been arguing the toss on some points for some time. Meeting had been going for only a minute before Administrator's exasperation with his predecessor came to the fore.
BH gave us a timeline showing that Cruikshank's looting of accounts happened outside the eight days that BH was Administrator. This came down to a lesson on how to tell the time in different timezones. One defence was that final payments on 10th of whatevermonth came out of a US bank account, by which time it might have been the 11th of the month in Oz and he was no longer Administrator. The meeting was getting a bit ragged, and it seemed unhelpful to point out that Cruikshank could have been punching away payment instructions while at the meeting on the 10th, while US banks were closed, and that the payments then go through when the banks opened in the US morning.
Anyway, he couldn't defend the fact that his non-control of coy assets enabled some of the looting.
As to the question "Was the point pressed hard in the meeting?", I reckon that nearly half of the 110 minute meeting involved BH.
No one at meeting could confirm whether anyone had told previous meeting (on the 10th of whenever) that all of the Breitburn shares had already been sold by the time of that meeting.
It was a close run vote, relying on both Administrators and some creditors getting into a huddle to argue the toss, because some creditors had instruction for a lower amount to be paid. BH won over, his threat being that if he wasn't remunerated in full, the DOCA and Administration would stay in limbo while BH dragged his invoices through the court system.
AZZ Price at posting:
50.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held