Extraordinary scenes as Aussie company’s entire workforce rallies in support of boss going up against his wife at the Family Court

EXCLUSIVE  

Extraordinary scenes occurred outside the Family Law Court in Sydney as a business’s entire staff gathered to support their boss in his bitter battle with his ex-wife.

Men clad in hi-vis jackets clustered outside the court’s entrance in the city’s CBD on Monday while a hearing was held between the company boss and his former partner. 

Passers-by watched on curiously as the men displayed their company’s logo in a show of strength on the footpath near the extremely private and security conscious court complex.

Denying the group was conducting a protest, one of the men told Daily Mail Australia, ‘We haven’t got signs or banners, we’re just here to show support for the boss’.

At the hearing before a Family Court judge, the husband’s lawyer claimed the company boss was ‘trying to keep the business afloat, keep the employees working’ and blamed ‘the wife’ for the fact that the company was threatened with liquidation.

The employees in hi-vis jackets clustered around the entrance of the privacy and security conscious Family Court of Australia in Goulburn Street

He said the wife had placed an injunction on one of the company’s properties ‘to prevent its sale … leading to the financial peril of this current business’.

The court was told: ‘The husband is the … person at the helm who is running the day-to-day operations. 

‘The wife seeks to remove him from that and install a professional (receiver)’.

‘The husband has significant contacts with third parties, personal relationships. Things may never be the same again.’

However the wife’s lawyer argued that there had been a downturn in the business’s financial credibility, cash flow issues and an outstanding tax bill of almost half a million dollars.

The court heard the business had current commitments of more than $11 million, and debts of $8m.

As the men put on their show of strength outside, inside the boss’s lawyer argued that he was ‘trying to keep the business afloat, keep the employees working’

The judge was ‘far from convinced’ by the husband’s argument and questioned his objections to installing a receiver. 

The judge said that if financial remedies were not applied ‘it’s not a receiver who will be appointed, it’s a liquidator’.

The judge said the way financial and other documents had been presented to the court is ‘just extraordinary’.  

The judge also questioned the fact the husband had borrowed $1.7m to keep the business in liquidity.

‘The husband has been doing his absolute best trying to save this business, its employees and its stakeholders,’ the lawyers claimed.

The case continues. None of the parties involved in this story could be identified for legal reasons.