Case: Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Visidet Pty Ltd [2005] FCA 830
Outcome: followed
None of this is to suggest that the Deputy Commissioner was under any obligation to accept the proffered cheque. When the history of Ganter's endeavours to pay the debt after the filing of the winding up application is recalled and that the company was, by operation of s 459C(2)(a) the Corporations Act 2001 presumed to be insolvent the Deputy Commissioner would have been entitled not to accept the cheque. A refusal to accept the cheque would not have eliminated the debt in question: Australian Mid-Eastern Club Ltd v Yassim (1989) 1 ACSR 399 , at 403 (NSWCA); Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Visidet Pty Ltd [2005] FCA 830 at [3] per Gyles J. 21 In my opinion, the date for the determination of standing to apply for the winding up of a company is the date when the application is made. As it was when Motor Terms v Liberty Insurance (supra) was decided, the process for the winding up of a company remains today entirely statutory. By s 459A(1)(b) of the Corporations Act a creditor is one of the persons who may apply for the winding up of a company. The application for the winding up of Ganter was made by the Deputy Commissioner upon the filing of the application in this Court on 20 August 2008. At that time, the Deputy Commissioner was, on any view, a creditor. Like Gyles J in Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Visidet Pty Ltd (at [5]), I am not persuaded that there is any requirement flowing from the Corporations Act that the applicant must continue to be a creditor at the time when the winding up application is heard. As his Honour there states (ibid), and though it is cited in a number of cases which he notes, the passage from the judgement of Menzies J in Motor Terms v Liberty Insurance (supra) does not support the existence of any such requirement. 22 The true position is that the applicant's status as a creditor at the time when the application was made and the presumption flowing from the company's failure to comply with the terms of a statutory demand are sufficient to give the Court jurisdiction to order the winding up of the company. That was the conclusion reached by Zeeman J in Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Guy Holdings Pty Ltd (1994) 116 FLR 314 at 318. As did Gyles J in Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Visidet Pty Ltd (at [6]), I agree with that conclusion. As Zeeman J observed in the Guy Holdings Case (at 320), "in the case of an application under s 459P where the debt the subject of the statutory demand has been paid after the filing of the application, the application ought to be dismissed unless there is established some positive reason that a winding up order ought to be made". His Honour is there referring to the way in which, in those circumstances, the discretion vested in the Court on the hearing of a winding up application by s 467 of the Corporations Act would ordinarily be exercised. 24 In their submissions the solicitors for the company pointed to the observation made by Gyles J in Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Visidet Pty Ltd (at [8]), "With trading companies the existence of a winding up proceeding is a very serious inhibition and has very serious impacts". I respectfully agree. That is one reason why it behoves a company which wishes to keep trading to pay its debts as they fall due or at least later to comply with the terms of a statutory demand. It is also a reason why, all other things being equal, a Court would be disposed, as a matter of discretion, to dismiss a winding up application if satisfied that the debt owed to the applicant creditor had been paid. Another consideration not to be ignored is the protection of the revenue. Yet another consideration is that Ganter, by its solicitors, initially agreed with the Deputy Commissioner's proposal that on 13 November 2008 the adjournment of the application for one week ought to be sought. A further consideration is the public interest in whether a company which is presumed to be insolvent ought to be permitted to continue to trade or whether it ought to be wound up. 25 Ganter's change of heart as to the course which ought to be taken on 13 November 2008 seems to have been multi-factorial in origin. Inferentially from the submissions made to me and to the District Registrar it was founded upon what I regard as the misapprehension that the payment of an applicant creditor's debt obliged the Court to dismiss a winding up application, as opposed to that being a factor going to discretion. Likewise, it seems to have been grounded on the belief that the acceptance of the bank cheque by the Deputy Commissioner extinguished the debt then and there, as opposed to so doing upon the fulfilment of the condition subsequent of the cheque's being cleared. Further, it seems to have been grounded upon the belief that, the cheque payment having been recorded as a credit on 11 November 2008 in its accounts, the Deputy Commissioner was obliged, as a "model litigant" to agree to the dismissal of the winding up application on 13 November 2008. 26 This, with respect, misapprehends the obligation that falls on those representing the interests of the Crown in civil litigation. One of those interests, and it is a vital interest, is the protection of the revenue. The Deputy Commissioner would certainly have failed in his duty to the Court as a model litigant had the acceptance of the cheque and the terms upon which it had been accepted not been drawn to the Court's attention on 13 November 2008. It was. Especially as matters then stood as to the clearing of the bank cheque and the Deputy Commissioner's knowledge as to the practice of the NAB in relation to the circumstances in which it would not meet a bank cheque and the time within which any such disposition on the part of the bank would usually be signified, it was not unreasonable for the Deputy Commissioner to resist the dismissal of the application that day. The position then to take was a matter for the value judgement of the Deputy Commissioner in the circumstances in the administration of the taxation laws. The entry in the accounts of the ATO had no more than a provisional quality about it.