Frustrated farmers taking legal action

ANOTHER grain trader has gone to the wall.

Grainworks Operations Pty Ltd was placed in liquidation on August 22 with debts of nearly $1.7 million.

It is the fourth collapse this year, following All Commodities and Lempriere Grain in March and Grainpro last month.

Grainworks Operations is owned and run by Timothy Oakley, whose address is listed as 101 Collins Street in Melbourne.

Mr Oakley has put in a claim as an unsecured creditor for $364,000, making him the largest creditor in the collapse.

Another big unsecured creditor is Ian Mallon’s broking firm, Mallon Commodity Brokering, with a claim of $170,000. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is a secured creditor, owed $163,000.

Paul Vartelas, of BK Taylor and Co., was appointed liquidator in a meeting with Mr Oakley on August 22.

In a document filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Mr Oakley claimed Grainworks’ assets, which included cash, money owed to the company, plant and machinery were likely to realise $500.

In May DeLaval Oceania vice-president Justin Thompson told The Weekly Times “the vast majority of our robotics farmers in Australia are getting the results they wanted”.

He said in the 10 years since DeLaval installed its first robotic system in Australia two farms decommission them.

The Rural Weekly’s sister paper The Weekly Times has since been approached by four dairy farmers who have decommissioned DeLaval robots, with at least two ending up in legal disputes. They included:

A QUEENSLAND dairy farming couple who claim they suffered severe production and milk quality losses. DeLaval removed the robots, but the couple were forced to sell the property. The husband died last year and the widow signed a confidentiality agreement in her settlement with DeLaval.

WEST Australian dairy farmer Rob Giura, who decommissioned two of his four DeLaval robotic milkers, saying he had battled for two years trying to milk a 250-cow herd, but was now using two robots to milk 80.