Having spent months trying to serve James Cruickshank with notice of its pending civil proceedings, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission this week earned Federal Court indulgence to allow the matter to commence without the traditional formalities of a personal handover of documents.

Cruickshank is the former Duntroon-trained soldier whose eye for a land deal and gift of the gab saw him become, briefly, a moderately successful Texas oil man as the executive chairman of a Perth-listed, Houston-based junior driller called Antares Energy.