C2007/3511, Transcript of Proceedings [2007] AIRCTrans 578 (29 October 2007)

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

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Workplace Relations Act 1996 17647-1

JUSTICE GIUDICE, PRESIDENT
SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT KAUFMAN
COMMISSIONER CRIBB

C2007/3511

s.120 - Appeal to Full Bench
Appeal by Bittmann, Antal
(C2007/3511)

MELBOURNE

10.12AM, TUESDAY, 16 OCTOBER 2007

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Yes, Mr Bittman, you have the floor to yourself. We received a letter from the liquidator which I think my associate - - -

MR A BITTMANN: I've just received a copy, thank you.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: - - - has provided to you. Have you had an opportunity to read that?

MR BITTMANN: Yes, I have.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: We have your notice of appeal and we also have the transcript of the hearing before Lawler VP and we've read those. Is there anything that you wish to put orally now in support of the appeal?

MR BITTMANN: Firstly, I have some submissions in relation to have leave to appeal.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Yes, thanks, Mr Bittmann. Yes, you go ahead with your oral submission.

MR BITTMANN: Are there any points you would wish me to clarify in relation
to - - -

JUSTICE GIUDICE: I think there are some points I should raise with you, yes. The point you have in B in the document you've just handed up refers - - -

MR BITTMANN: Termination of employment.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: No, the document you've handed up - - -

MR BITTMANN: B, Lawler VP yes.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: B, you say:

The Vice President failed to address your application seeking a declaration of contravention based on section 131(7)(E)(1)(a) of the Corporations Act and section 305 of the Workplace Relations Act.

I should point out to you that section 305 doesn't confer jurisdiction on this Commission, it confers jurisdiction on the Federal Court of Australia. In those circumstances it wouldn't be open to the Commission to make the declaration that you've sought under that.

MR BITTMANN: I agree with that, your Honour, but I submitted that it's 305 and you're quite right, the pecuniary penalty order that the Federal Court must make, I understand that fully, your Honour, but the wind-up and liquidation under the Corporations Act is all embraced under the Corporations Act. So contraventions by an employer and responsibility of the employer is to the Corporations Act and the contravention has occurred in the Corporations Act. The wind-up is under the Corporations Act.

I assume that the Commission deals simply with the relationship between an employer and the employees. In this case at the hearing it appears that the employer wasn't represented, the liquidator was but he's represented as an officer of the court, hence the reason I say in my application that - which it cost the company a lot of money to find out that whilst the company is in liquidation no lawyers will act for them. They'll take your money from you but they do not disclose the fact that because it's in liquidation they'll be in contempt of court to act for you so they won't take any instructions. It cost, as I say, the company many thousands of dollars. Many lawyers simply just issue a document to say that they will not act but they never display as to the reason why they will not act.

It's difficult, as you read from the transcript, Lawler VP, from my reading of it and certainly my experience of it, he was acting as a defender of the liquidator. In other words, he was prosecuting the case for the liquidator rather than an impartial hearing of the Commission. The main fact I'm trying to make to the Commission that terminating employees without their proper entitlements is unlawful. I'm here to demonstrate as to how they can get past that by simply - anybody can appoint a liquidator and therefore, legally, if you like, subject employees to not having any entitlement to any pay simply because they say the court has done it.

I think the Commission should act to bring that responsibility into line. It ought to treat this case as being an employer who's done an unlawful act. A declaration ought to be made by the Commission to say that that is not lawful and the Commission should not tolerate that. Just to add to that, your Honour, if I may, I am the company secretary of Antal-Air, I'm the managing director of Antal-Air, I am the shareholder of Antal-Air, my wife and I. There's two directors and under the Corporations Act, of course, I'm an employee of Antal-Air and I've exhausted through the courts, and the liquidator alluded to it that I have been through the courts and I've lost but I've got the court hearings.

My case didn't lose, I was simply knocked out on technicalities or the ..... rule, rule 2, out of time, like this last one and in other words the case never gets discussed, it just simply gets removed on technicality, almost get accused as being a vexatious litigant, my case is incompetent. All of the technical issues of the case, just exactly what occurred, doesn't get a look-in. It was at the Federal Court, it was at the Appeals Tribunal and the case itself, where the wrongs are occurring, doesn't get a look-in.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: We're not in the position, Mr Bittmann, of having a general jurisdiction to right any wrong. We have a statutory jurisdiction and we have to act within our own powers. We can't use powers that the parliament hasn't given us and so I think that you ought to bear that in mind.

For example, the sections of the Workplace Relations Act which you've attached to your submission, section 305 and section 10, those parts of our Act refer to the regulation of organisations which are registered under the Workplace Relations Act and the supervision of them by the Federal Court. They don't provide any basis for us, for the Commission to act. Do you follow that?

MR BITTMANN: I do, your Honour. That's why in my application, in which I clearly said that I was simply asking for a declaration of the contravention. I wasn't asking for compensation in my original application. I was just asking for the Commission to make a declaration that to terminate people's employment in these circumstances is unlawful and the Commission does not condone it.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Yes, very well.

MR BITTMANN: That is really what the whole essence - I mean, the whole nation is almost heading into an election mode, talking about unfair dismissals and the corporations law and how it's being abused and I'm saying if the law was followed, it would be just to the employees because the protection that is guaranteed in the Corporations Act, and that's why I referred to section 596, I think it is, and in 596 there's a lenience of six years to make an application. In the Commission they use 21 days. I don't think there's an employee out there who realises that they've only got 21 days to make an application because that's not the place that you first run for recompense. You're arguing with the employer and argue the wrongs and that's in the Federal Court.

If it's going to be decided that it's simply on the principles of Brodie-Hanns, which I make the point I think that reflects to 1988 when it was brought in, there's been a lot of changes in legislation since 1988 and that ought not be the criteria for knocking workers' claims out of this courtroom.

SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT KAUFMAN: Mr Bittmann, that is one of the criteria that has remained constant and there are hundreds, if not thousands of applications brought by employees alleging that the termination of their employment was harsh, unjust or unreasonable or unlawful that are brought within the 21 day time limit. You are obviously not aware of that. I just thought I should bring that to your attention.

MR BITTMANN: As I said most of my fight was - and all my fights in the courts, I'd like to bring to your attention, wasn't on my behalf, it was on behalf of the employees because it was the employees - although I'm one of them - not only was there no termination pay, they didn't even receive - they only received
60 per cent of their wage. Their wage payroll was in transit and the liquidator stepped in as an officer of the court and stopped that transaction. Now, he makes the claim he didn't have any money, of course he didn't have any money because I was the guarantor of the overdraft and the moment he made these moves, which were a totally, in my opinion, wrong, he destroyed the company. Instantaneously he had no funds to pay ..... but that was his responsibility and he needs to be held accountable for that.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Mr Bittmann, you've set out there the passage from House v The King which governs the - - -

MR BITTMANN: I copied that from one of your hearings of the three judges.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Yes, well, that's the test that governs how we look at appeals.

MR BITTMANN: Which, in principle, is the way it ought to be.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: It's good to have your endorsement of that.

MR BITTMANN: Absolutely, your Honour.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Could you tell us what the errors are, error or errors you say the Vice President made in his decision.

MR BITTMANN: The Vice President firstly, right from the beginning of the transaction, he allowed - first of all, he didn't follow the rules of the hearing. To give a proper transaction of any hearing, the rules ought to be followed. The rules, if the employer wants to appear, right, he should have filled in a form R28 which I say wasn't done. I had no way of knowing on what grounds that he appealed on. Point 2, notice of appearance must be filed within seven days of service of applicant's employer by the Registrar. That wasn't done. A motion to dismiss the application for want of jurisdiction - I mean, that is a free hand in itself to allow an employer to simply move for want of jurisdiction to have an applicant dismissed, I think is a little too generous to an employer.

Motion to dismiss the application on the grounds that it's frivolous, vexatious or lacking in substance must be made in accordance with form 30. Frivolous, vexatious and lacking in substance is exactly the rules that were used to defeat me in the Federal Court. These are just commentary. It needs to be supported by something. What makes an application frivolous? What makes it vexatious? What makes it lacking in substance? If these are the criteria - I can give you the listing of that where the loopholes are. I was going to use them as some of the points to highlight the issues as to how these things go simply off the rails.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Yes, well, go ahead.

MR BITTMANN: I've got three copies of these. You would regard them as a lawyer's picnic. If I was an employer, and a bad one, I'm not saying there's a lot of bad employers there - - -

JUSTICE GIUDICE: If you can just focus on what you say the errors were, Mr Bittmann.

MR BITTMANN: Number 5, as soon as practical after filing a notice of appearance, and any motion for dismissal of the application, an employer must give to the applicant a copy of the notice of motion. When I raised it with Lawler VP, he just simply dismissed it. He said, "That's irrelevant because you're the applicant and it's up to you to try and prove your case." I said, "Well, with respect, I wouldn't be wasting the court's time if I had the documents on what grounds does the liquidator oppose my application." I would have had the opportunity to prepare myself but there was nothing.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Mr Bittmann, at the start of the proceedings the Vice President outlined to you the fact that your application was out of time and it was up to you to persuade him why the time should be extended beyond the 21 days to some three years.

MR BITTMANN: At the outset I also brought to Lawler VP's attention that there's been an involvement by Commissioner Foggo who dismissed me in the first instance of saying - there wasn't a formal hearing but she dismissed me by saying there was no jurisdiction. Then there was correspondence between Commissioner Foggo and myself where I pointed out some of the responsibilities of the Commission from my point of view and then it wasn't out of time suddenly, Lawler VP got involved and had the hearing and saying now the whole session is about being out of time. In my application I've put there as to the reason I should be given extension of time and my reasons were that this case has been going on in the Federal Court for a considerable number of years now on technicality. That's the reason that I was out of time but the application wasn't addressed at all.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: I think your first point was that the Vice President didn't follow the rules of hearing.

MR BITTMANN: Regulation 31.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Yes.

MR BITTMANN: I mean, I followed regulation 30. I did, as I understood, everything correctly and from then on I'm saying it went off the rails.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: What's the next thing you say constituted an error?

MR BITTMANN: I tried to bring to the Vice President's notice that there was a fraudulent act on behalf of the liquidator. In the transcript and in his order, the Vice President doesn't declare on what grounds it was dismissed, it's just that it was dismissed because if you look at the transcript it was wavering between (1) dismiss me on being out of time, but in the second part of his dismissal, it wasn't on being out of time, but he was there protecting the remuneration and things of the liquidator and I brought it to his attention at the trial and I said that he's being biased and he ought to remove himself on that ground. I submitted section 140 of the Workplace Relations Act pointing that out, that any decisions or any bias that is shown by a Commissioner or a Registrar or the Vice President, ought to be addressed simply because it becomes, the old fashioned thing, an impeachment, that the parliament has to get involved in these circumstances.

I think it's very difficult to get any hearing in parliament about these sort of issues but I think the Appellant Court ought to be looking at it and say, "Well, that needs to be addressed." I think a Vice president or a Commissioner or a Registrar shouldn't put themselves in a position where the only criteria that's in their interests is to protect a liquidator. Liquidators are private bodies and they've got commercial interests.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: I think the point that the Vice President made on this question was that the liquidator had been appointed by order of the court and that it wasn't open to the Commission to go behind the court's order.

MR BITTMANN: That's very true, except that's why I asked in the transcript - it's been addressed and I asked Lawler VP whether he understood the difference between liquidation and winding up. I've got a fair ..... about asking that sort of question but there's a massive difference between liquidation and winding up. The court appointed a liquidator for the purpose of winding up. Winding up is the reason in my application, as I clearly said, a winding up is - the fact of a winding-up is for the benefit of all the contributors and shareholders and creditors, most important, the employees. It's for their benefit as if the winding-up was made as one document. It's not there for the remuneration of a liquidator. In this case it's exactly what he's done and I said there's a massive difference, catastrophic difference between winding up a company and liquidating a company.

The only one that benefits from the liquidation of the company is the liquidator financially as it was in this case, but there's many cases out there where the employees - I mean Lawler VP asked me as to why did I make an application. I said, well, actually the reason was, because when I was reading in the newspapers about the treatment of the employees of the cars - manufacturing cars where all of these employees were sacked ..... . Russell was one of them. The other one was Ajax Fasteners. It was in the newspapers where the liquidator just moves in and sacks all the employees and no redundancy pay. I said that's against the law. Why is the Commission not getting involved here? The fact that the liquidator says, like it does here, "But I've got no money left," I said. "Whose fault is that? You mean you run out of money the moment you got appointed?"

The Corporations Act in section 96, that I'm bringing to the attention of the Commission, clearly says that the - like, in other words, if I did what the liquidator has done, I wouldn't be here, I'd be in gaol, rightfully so. So what's the difference?

The Vice President, his background, as he claims, that he's practised for 10 years in New South Wales as a barrister and he doesn't understand the difference between liquidation and winding up? We've got a very sad state of affairs. These cases that are used, day in and day out, are simply for the advantage - if my company had large debts this would have been the ideal solution for me because you get rid of all your debts and you pocket all your assets and you can walk away with the court's blessing.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Are there any other errors which you say were made?

MR BITTMANN: I would think that's enough. If you read the sections in the back you will find that the major concentration of Lawler VP was the fact that the liquidator hasn't got any money ..... the fact that he's pocketed it and used it up, that should not be the fault of the employees. Part of their condition when they get engaged is they have to deposit a fair sum of money with ASIC to make sure that their administration is conducted properly and they have professional indemnity insurance. So their responsibility is no less than mine is as an employer.

In this letter, your Honour, as you can clearly see, the liquidator is looking for your protection.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Is there anything else, Mr Bittmann?

MR BITTMANN: In relation to these errors? No, that's all I can think of.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Is there anything else you wanted to say?

MR BITTMANN: In relation to the appeal?

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Yes.

MR BITTMANN: I've got heaps of documents to demonstrate as to what the Act is and what the procedures should have been followed.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: So far as error goes - - -

MR BITTMANN: I'm concerned about the Commission - no, I understand that. As far as the Commission is concerned there ought be just a follow-up to say that an employer does not have the right to dismiss employees without the proper compensation, whether they've got the money or not. As I say, if it was I, as the owner and the director, would have done that rightfully asked of me. That's why I ask the Commission to embrace section 96 because that is the - 596AA, the employees entitlements, to embrace that because that's the criteria that the employers have to be governed by and judged by and the protection is quite clear and the Commission should endorse that. If the employer contravenes that, they have to compensate it personally. Every employer knows that in the industry, I can tell you. That's the section that the employers get reminded on constantly, that you have a responsibility as a director to ensure that you look after the entitlements of the employers. An employee has got six years to make a claim and I think the Commission should embrace that, not 21 days. Have you got the section I referred to, your Honour?

JUSTICE GIUDICE: You just tell me about it. I'm taking notes as you speak, Mr Bittmann.

MR BITTMANN: It's under the green folder that I submitted, the three - the original. You got a folder each, and I think a green cover. I think it's the first green cover. They should be in there and I think that there is - the fundamentals support your House v The King philosophy or principles. The object of this Part, the employees' agreement and transaction intent is to recover these entitlements, the entitlements of the employees who currently aren't protected under this Part so any transaction that the employer enters into that jeopardises the entitlements of the employees he personally becomes responsible. The transaction that the liquidator entered into jeopardised all of the employees' entitlements.

The moment he declared, and he declared that, not the court, that the company is in liquidation, that became a disaster because that triggered the employees' entitlements where their due pay at that time was something like $3000 and the moment he made a declaration that it was in liquidation, that climbed to $150,000 instantaneously. There's no company that can dig in and find $150,000. He did that on purpose only to gain an advantage for himself and a disadvantage to the employees and nobody should get rewarded for that kind of action.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: We're about to adjourn to consider what you have put, Mr Bittmann. Is there anything else you want to submit?

MR BITTMANN: Most of what I've got, your Honour, is - I mean, there is one important thing that I was trying to get to Lawler VP and that is that the company was not in liquidation. The company is under external administration.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: When?

MR BITTMANN: It is still today. There's the company extract of Antal-Air.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Mr Sutherland says that you made an application to the court to remove him as liquidator.

MR BITTMANN: Yes, I did.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Why do you say the company is not in liquidation?

MR BITTMANN: Because the company is declared to be under external administration. There's an ASIC extract and that declares that Antal-Air - the printout is on 12/10/2007 - is under external administration. There's a massive difference between external administration and liquidation and there's a document there where the liquidator filed the right document on 23/4/2004, that's three days after the wind-up, to say that he was appointed as the administrator, but he never wanted to behave like an administrator. All the time he wanted to be a liquidator and a court officer.

There's a document over there that states that:

The use in the court proceedings of information from ASIC's national
database -

and that's what you've got there:

- in a proceeding in a court, a writing that purports to have been prepared by ASIC is admissible as prime facie evidence of the matters stated in so much of the writing as it sets out in properties, information about ASIC.

So in any court that's evidence to show that the company is in administration, not liquidation.

SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT KAUFMAN: Mr Bittmann, the order of the Registrar that is in the green folder that you gave us, orders that the company be wound up in insolvency, that order stands, does it not? that has not been rescinded.

MR BITTMANN: That order stands.

SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT KAUFMAN: The liquidator was appointed to wind up the company and is currently doing that.

MR BITTMANN: The winding up of the company can have a lot of interpretation. In the meaning of the Act, the winding up of the company is when an administrator gets appointed, not liquidation.

SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT KAUFMAN: Yes, thank you.

MR BITTMANN: His qualification is that he has got to be an official liquidator but he's been confusing the qualification with the activity.

SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT KAUFMAN: The second part of that order required that Keith Lawrence Sutherland of Benton Kugel, Chartered Accountants, an official liquidator be appointed liquidator for the purposes of the winding up.

MR BITTMANN: For the purposes of the winding up, yes.

SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT KAUFMAN: That stands, does it? That order stands?

MR BITTMANN: That stands, yes. It's what he had done with his appointment, what he used his position to the detriment of all of the creditors instead of that order is there for the purpose - the effect of the order, and that's what I have in that green folder, the effect of that order is for the benefit of all of the creditors, not one creditor, the liquidator, all of the creditors and all the employees. That's the effect of a winding-up order. He turned it into a benefit to himself. He didn't follow what the purpose and the intention of a wind-up order is. That's what section 471, after the blue folder. In the note of section 471A, it becomes under the criminal code when you behave in that nature and so it ought to be.

I've got all the documents over here if you wish to look at them as to how the manipulation occurred at that time. The so-called liquidation and things occurred before the court actually made that wind-up order. The liquidator can just appoint himself and then the liquidator submits to the courts to say he, as an official liquidator, this is before the wind-up order, asks the court to wind them up and appoint him as the liquidator. No hearing is required. The court doesn't have to get involved. It's just from then on in he gets the court's blessing.

The court wasn't involved in his appointment. His appointment was recommended by another liquidator and I have all the documents thus far, but the reason I'm not making a big point of it, because you're more interested about the employer/employee relationship rather than what happened at the court. As Lawler VP said he doesn't want to go behind the thing. I said, "Well, if you don't want to get behind it, all you really need to do is understand there is a massive difference between winding up and liquidation, a massive difference."

SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT KAUFMAN: Mr Bittmann, the matter before us, as his Honour the President has sought to explain to you, is confined to an appeal against the Vice President's order dismissing your application for leave to file your application in this Commission beyond the 21 days. That's what we are limited to, and you should understand that.

MR BITTMANN: No, with respect, your Honour, if you read - in the order first of all, it doesn't state the reasons why he's dismissing.

SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT KAUFMAN: No, and you're appealing that order. That's what we are dealing with and that is all that we are dealing with.

MR BITTMANN: The order itself simply says, "Further to the reasons given in the transcript," but in the transcript there's two reasons. One is reason out of time, but then in his last part, when he came back he asked the pertinent question, his reason is really that the liquidator hasn't got any money to pay and that is a contravention of his appointment. It is not his job or duty to protect the liquidator against payments.

SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT KAUFMAN: I understand that's your submission, yes.

MR BITTMANN: Once he went - he concentrated on the Brodie-Hanns one but once he took a break to have a thought about it, then he came back asking the pertinent question as to the background as to what the liquidator did and in that you'll find that he's gone out of his way to protect the liquidator. That's the pleading of the liquidator as well. He hasn't got any money.

JUSTICE GIUDICE: We intend to adjourn now to consider what's been put and we'll ask you to wait, Mr Bittmann.

<SHORT ADJOURNMENT [10.59AM]
<RESUMED [11.11AM]

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Thank you for waiting. We're in a position to give a decision.

This is an application for leave to appeal and leave is granted in an appeal against the decision given by Lawler VP on 14 August 2007, declining to extend the time for lodgement for an application for a remedy in relation to termination of employment by Mr Antal Bittmann. In that decision the Vice President also dismissed Mr Bittmann's application.

The respondent in these proceedings is Antal-Air Pty Ltd in liquidation. Mr Bittmann's original application for a remedy was lodged approximately three years out of time.

Mr Bittmann appeared on his own behalf. There was no appearance for the respondent. In the course of written and oral submissions Mr Bittmann alleged that the Vice President's decision was affected by a number of errors. The first error was a broad ground that the Vice President failed to conduct the hearing properly. This included a number of grounds but in particular that the respondent had not filed a notice of appearance as required by regulation 31 of the Workplace Relations Regulations and that the respondent did not make an application to dismiss the application for want of jurisdiction. Mr Bittmann also drew our attention to the fact that he had submitted that the Vice President should disqualify himself on the grounds of bias and that the Vice President had declined to do so.

We are not persuaded that there is an arguable case that there was any unfairness or invalidity in the manner in which the hearing was conducted and we reject the first ground.

The second alleged ground of error was that the Vice President failed to appreciate the difference between a liquidation and a winding up. We are satisfied that the Vice President made no material error in that regard either.

Thirdly, it was alleged that the Vice President wrongly took into account that there were no funds to satisfy any order eventually gained if time were extended and the application was successful. In our view, the lack of funds was a relevant, perhaps a critical matter and there is no apparent error in the manner in which the Vice President dealt with that consideration.

We should mention also, as relevant to the errors alleged, that Mr Bittmann seeks a declaration that the liquidator in this case had acted improperly and contravened the Corporations legislation. In that regard it is only necessary to point out that the Commission cannot grant a declaration of that kind.

Fifthly, it was submitted that the Vice President should have taken into account that the limitation period for civil liability generally is six years and that should have been a persuasive factor in considering whether time should be extended. In our view there is no error apparent in the Vice President's failure to do so. He was obliged, as are we, to have regard to the 21 day limitation prescribed in the Workplace Relations Act.

Other submissions were made but none in our view disclosed an arguable case of error. In considering whether to grant leave to appeal, we have been guided by the conventional considerations referred to by the Federal Court of Australia in Wan v Australian Industrial Relations Commission (2001) FCA 1803, a joint judgment of Spender, Kiefel and Dowsett JJ. At paragraph 30 of the decision the court said this:

Section 45 does not specify grounds for grating leave to appeal other than in a special case referred to in section 45(2). As we have previously observed grounds traditionally adopted in granting leave have included considerations such as whether the decision is attended with sufficient doubt to warrant its reconsideration and whether substantial injustice may result if leave is refused. These grounds should not be seen as fetters upon the broad discretion conferred by section 45(1) but as examples of circumstances which will usually be treated as justifying the grant of leave. It will rarely, if ever, be appropriate to grant leave unless an arguable case of appealable error is demonstrated. This is so simply because an appeal cannot succeed in the absence of appealable error.

Their honours were referring to section 45 of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and their comments apply equally to section 120 of the Act, as amended since that decision. Applying that approach this is not a case in which leave should be granted to appeal and we dismiss the application. We will now adjourn.

<ADJOURNED INDEFINITELY [11.19AM]