Melbourne sign company Aussie Signs, fined $250,000 for its role in a fatal Swanston Street wall collapse three years ago, has gone into voluntary liquidation.
The Sandringham-based signage company was hired by construction giant Grocon to erect an advertising hoarding on the front of a brick wall at the former Carlton & United Breweries site, which was bought by Grocon in 2008. The company subcontracted the work to another firm but provided materials and oversaw construction and installation.
The wall later collapsed in strong winds, killing teenage siblings Alexander and Bridget Jones of Melbourne and 33-year-old French citizen Marie-Faith Fiawoo.
Aussie Signs was charged with breaching health and safety laws under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. In his ruling earlier this year, Judge David Parsons said the company had failed to take adequate steps to ensure that the wall was safe, including arranging for a risk assessment, structural engineering assessment or building permit, or ensuring that Grocon had done so. He convicted Aussie Signs and fined the company $250,000. Previously, Grocon had also been fined $250,000 over safety breaches.
The Age newspaper reported that barrister Nick Papas, QC, representing Aussie Signs, had argued that his client should be held less culpable than Grocon, the site's owner and lead contractor, over failures to foresee the grave structural danger. "Grocon was a conglomerate of many thousands of employees, with engineers on site...we were a 60-to-70-person sign-writing company," Papas said.
Accountancy firm Grant Thornton has called a creditors' meeting in Melbourne on 17 May.