‘Just too bland’: MinterEllison cops spray over invoices with ‘vacuous descriptions’ for Vicstock Grain work

A Supreme Court judge has delivered a serve to top-shelf law firm MinterEllison while knocking back an application for it to be paid $169,628.14 from a court-supervised trust. Justice Kenneth Martin said invoices from the firm were “just too bland” to justify them being paid from a $1.6 million trust fund set up in May for the failed export group Vicstock Grain. After reviewing evidence including affidavits from MinterEllison senior associates David Suttner and Emily Chappelow, Justice Martin decried the “inadequate detail” in invoices from the law firm to Vicstock liquidators. Justice Martin said all seven invoices tendered in evidence contained the words “for details and breakdowns please see attachment”. “But no such attachment information has been provided to me within Mr Suttner’s affidavit,” Justice Martin said. Vicstock liquidators at Hall Chadwick established the $1.6m trust account in May to help fight a $35m Supreme Court claim by Chinese agricultural group Heilongjiang Feng. Southern Ports Authority last year refused to extend Vicstock’s lease over two Albany Port lots in July last year, claiming the emerging player had failed to meet minimum tonnage requirements under its expired lease. With the help of MinterEllison, liquidators from Hall Chadwick have been negotiating with Southern Ports to get something from the tens of millions of dollars spent developing a grain export facility at Albany. The port negotiations were seen to be key to resolving Vicstock’s messy legal fight with its Chinese backer. Justice Martin set up the trust account under strict conditions that allowed MinterEllison to be paid for work on negotiations with Southern Port and in fighting Heilongjiang Feng’s $35m claim. MinterEllison clocked up almost $189,574.95 of bills up to the end of August. But Justice Martin’s judgment shows that was later reduced by $19,950.81 ahead of lawyers from the firm asking the court to clear them being paid. A bill for $80,058 includes the names of Vicstock and Heilongjiang and a subhead “contract dispute”. It has the line items “professional fees — taxable”, “plus GST” and “total amount payable on receipt of invoice”. Justice Martin said that “unduly brief and bland description” did not convey sufficient information to engage with the criteria that trust money should be paid for work on the Heilongjiang litigation and Southern Ports negotiations. “It is only necessary to refer in illustration to one more of the remaining six invoices, since all subsequently issued six invoices commonly display the same vacuous descriptions towards work billed for by MinterEllison,” he said. That invoice “merely reads ... liquidation assistance” in relation to Vicstocks Grain and related companies VSG Farming Services and V-Assets. “That ‘assistance’ description again conveys nothing tangible to assist me about legal work performed,” he said. “In short, that is, again, just too bland to support a proposed utilisation of trust money that is in dispute as to its ultimate beneficial ownership in this action.” He said there was not the details required for him to satisfy the conditions he laid down on May 7 when setting up the trust fund.