Nick Dale appeared in the Fed­er­al Court on 11 August 2023 act­ing for Koshib Invest­ment Pty Ltd which is suing Slater & Gor­don Ltd

In the case, Koshib Invest­ment Pty Ltd atf Koshib Fund v Slater & Gor­don, Koshib Invest­ment, a self-man­aged super­an­nu­a­tion fund is suing Slater & Gor­don Ltd over the com­pul­so­ry acqui­si­tion of its shares in Slater & Gor­don Ltd by an enti­ty asso­ci­at­ed with Alle­gro Funds.

At a con­test­ed case man­age­ment hear­ing before Fed­er­al Court Jus­tice John Hal­ley, Nick was suc­cess­ful in obtain­ing a six-week exten­sion to enable our client to decide whether to pre­pare an amend­ed claim against Wright Nom­i­neeCo Pty Ltd, the asso­ci­at­ed enti­ty of Alle­gro Funds that acquired over 90 per­cent cent of Slater & Gor­don Ltd’s ordi­nary shares. 

Nick sub­mit­ted to the Court that our client needs ​“the exten­sion in order to obtain expert opin­ion on the fair­ness of the acqui­si­tion price, to get a bet­ter idea of the case’s prospect of suc­cess.” After hear­ing oppos­ing sub­mis­sions from Slater & Gor­don Ltd’s bar­ris­ter, the judge reject­ed Slater & Gor­don Ltd’s argu­ment that the pro­ceed­ings should be dis­missed and that our client should not have addi­tion­al time in which to pre­pare mate­r­i­al in oppo­si­tion to a lump sum cost order which Slater & Gor­don Ltd seeks against our client.

The case will present an inter­est­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for the Fed­er­al Court to give a judg­ment on the prin­ci­ples of com­pul­so­ry acqui­si­tion of shares in ASX list­ed companies.