First, further to my post on Wednesday discussing the Victorian Court of Appeal’s recent decision on disclaimer of leases by liquidators in Willmott Forests (link), my friend and colleague Sam Hopper has put an excellent analysis of the case on his blog here.

Secondly, I posted last month that the High Court of Australia had denied special leave to appeal to Mr Grimaldi, from the Full Federal Court’s important decision in Grimaldi v Chameleon Mining. That post can be viewed here and includes links to my article and other previous posts about this case. If you recall, key issues of equity and company law arose in the Full Federal Court’s decision, including de facto directors, Barnes v Addy (both limbs), secret commission/bribes, directors’ fiduciary duties and equitable remedies.

I had promised to return and post an update as to the High Court’s refusal of special leave to Mr Grimaldi. In short, the transcript (link) shows that the special leave application centred on the issue of de facto directors and officers, and that special leave was refused on grounds which included –

1. Even if Mr Grimaldi was not a director or officer, on his own case he acted as a third party consultant. Chameleon Mining had good prospects of demonstrating on the findings made that in that role he would have owed fiduciary duties to the company, and that he knowingly participated in a breach of duty by an appointed director (Mr Barnes) of the company. Thus Chameleon Mining had good prospects of demonstrating that the relief ordered by Jacobson J (and undisturbed on appeal) is supportable, even if Mr Grimaldi were not a director or officer. The contemplated appeal would therefore be futile;

2. Even if Mr Grimaldi were not a director, he was an officer. The Full Court’s reasoning is consistent with the more recent High Court decision in Shafron v ASIC [2012] HCA 18; (2012) 86 ALJR 584 (link );

3. Mr Grimaldi had insufficient prospects of demonstrating that the Full Court erred on the director issue. He had alleged that the Full Court failed to consider the governance structure of Chameleon Mining. As Heydon J observed, in fact it did.

Thirdly and finally, the third edition of Mortgagee’s Power of Sale will be released soon, written by Clyde Croft J and Robert Hay. The previous edition was released in 2004, so the updated edition will be an excellent and current resource for practitioners. For more details, see Robert’s post on his property law blog here.