The special purpose liquidators of collapsed apparel group Mosaic Brands have secured Federal Court orders to search a broad set of documents for material referencing key Corporations Act insolvent trading provisions – including those governing the safe harbour defence.
Court orders made by Justice Markovic in the Federal Court of Australia on May 13, 2026, obtained by Ragtrader, direct third-party provider LawInOrder to search documents – primarily from law firm Hamilton Locke – for any material created between January 2020 and July 2025 that references the terms "safe harbour," "588GA" or "588," being the Corporations Act provisions governing insolvent trading.
The search also targets all communications sent to, received from or copied to one of Hamilton Locke’s partners over the same period. Hamilton Locke is a corporate and commercial law firm that Mosaic Brands consulted with in recent years.
This is the latest update since the fashion group was wound up in 2025, with many of the brand assets being sold off to new owners. Mosaic was the owner of the likes of Katies, Noni B, Millers, Rivers and others.
Following the document tally, all retrieved copies – defined in the orders as "Potentially Privileged Documents" – are to be placed into electronic cold storage, inaccessible to the liquidators, and made available to the company's former directors, who will then have seven days to assert privilege claims over any materials they wish to shield from the liquidators' review.
Mosaic's directors have previously advised administrators they had sought to rely on safe harbour protections from April 1, 2021, according to the initial administrators report, and prior to that had relied on temporary Covid-19 relief from personal liability for insolvent trading.
However, FTI Consulting – which continues as liquidator alongside Wexted's special purpose liquidators – has already flagged doubts about those claims in its statutory liquidator’s report shared in October last year. The statutory report indicated that FTI's preliminary investigations found some or all of the directors may be unable to rely on the safe harbour regime.
FTI’s preliminary view was that Mosaic Brands was likely insolvent from as early as December 31, 2020 – “and potentially earlier” – and likely remained so until its collapse in October 2024.
Unsecured debts following the collapse of Mosaic, and which remain outstanding, total around $196 million, with inventory suppliers – numbering 209 – owed an accumulated $194.59 million. The liquidator’s report also noted that the directors had no directors and officers insurance policies in place to draw on.
The matter is listed before Justice Markovic for a further case management hearing on May 28, 2026, at which directions will be made for resolving any privilege disputes that emerge from the document review process.