A liquidator billed about 30 hours to chase $36 million. A judge has now removed him from Hellyer Metals

A Federal Court judge has removed the liquidator of Hellyer Metals, ruling that he did too little, too slowly, to find out where the company’s most valuable assets went.

Justice Shaun McElwaine ordered the immediate removal of Liam Bailey, a partner at insolvency firm O’Brien Palmer, on Tuesday and appointed Hobart-based liquidator Adam Johnston in his place. Mr Bailey must hand over all relevant records.

The judge said creditors needed “a new liquidator with a laser-like focus”.

What did the judge find?

Mr Bailey was appointed liquidator on 22 January 2026, after Hellyer Metals went into voluntary administration earlier that month.

Over the months that followed, he billed about 30 hours of investigative work. He did not demand the company’s accounting records, and he used a lawyer who had acted for its directors. He also sent a draft of his statutory report to the directors.

Justice McElwaine wrote that Mr Bailey “undertook little investigative work prior to the commencement of this proceeding” and that his inactivity was “objectively concerning”. He found the questions about Mr Bailey’s impartiality were “very real”.

Under cross-examination, Mr Bailey admitted he had put his personal interests ahead of the creditors’. “This betrays one of the fundamental obligations” of a liquidator, the judge wrote.

The judgment also criticised delays in pursuing a possible voidable transaction and a funding agreement with Gibraltar Capital. Mr Bailey had argued no proper cause for his removal had been shown. The judge found removal was “justified, indeed required”.

Where did the assets go?

On 5 November 2025, Hellyer Metals transferred its shares in the mine’s operating companies to the newly created Celestial Group.

Weeks later, Goshawk Mining obtained a Supreme Court order freezing $36.4 million of assets in Hellyer’s associated companies. Goshawk and Saxby Capital have been pursuing Hellyer Metals since late 2023 for more than $36 million in damages over a collapsed $25 million deal for an alluvial tin mine at Mount Cameron, in Tasmania’s north-east.

Justice McElwaine described the share transfer, its timing and the people involved as “highly questionable”. It is now for the new liquidator to investigate it. No finding of wrongdoing has been made against the company’s directors.

Why does this matter beyond one mine?

When a company fails, the liquidator is the creditors’ only investigator. They decide what gets looked at, who gets sued and what money comes back. Creditors pay for that work out of whatever is recovered.

That is why courts treat independence as non-negotiable. A liquidator does not have to be proven biased to be removed: it is enough that a fair-minded observer could reasonably doubt their impartiality. Here, the judge found more than doubt, pointing to work not done and a draft report shared with the very people whose dealings were in question.

For the suppliers, contractors and investors owed money, the change resets the clock. A new liquidator now starts from the records rather than from the directors’ account.

What is the Hellyer mine?

Hellyer Metals is one of six companies that owned the Hellyer gold mine in north-west Tasmania. The Tasmanian government issued a three-week stop-work order in October 2025 over alleged compliance failures and unpaid royalties, and later ordered the mine shut temporarily over unpaid debts.