Michael Kemp’s bankruptcy trustee alleges he failed to disclose key information about his assets

His law firm collapsed, he went bankrupt then was struck off as a lawyer. But the pain hasn’t ended there for Michael Kemp.

His Brisbane law firm collapsed in February with debts of more than $8m.

He then tumbled into personal bankruptcy by court order in May and got struck off as a personal injury lawyer the following month.

Could things possibly get much worse for disgraced former legal eagle Michael Kemp? Why yes, they could.

City Beat has managed to obtain a copy of the recently-completed report to creditors by Kemp’s bankruptcy trustee, Deloitte operative David Mansfield.

The report alleges Kemp withheld key information, omissions which could allow Mansfield to extend the three-year term of bankruptcy to either five or eight years.

It shows he went down with personal debts of $7.2m, including nearly $1.5m to the tax man, and had just $25.02 in cash spread across six bank accounts. No surprise that creditors are considered highly unlikely to get a return.

Michael Kemp

Worse still, Mansfield alleges that Kemp may have committed five offences by failing to disclose key financial matters in his “statement of affairs’’. If these are deemed “voidable transactions,’’ he could then be pursued for the money.

Kemp claimed he had not sold, transferred or given away any assets worth more than $1000 in the past five years. But Mansfield discovered that he had offloaded a spectacular home at Jolly’s Lookout for $2.42m in July last year.

Similarly, Kemp stated that he had not surrendered any assets to a creditor or had any assets repossessed in the previous 12 months. Yet Mansfield found that financiers in June seized back a 2019 Land Rover Range Rover vehicle worth about $150,000.

A superannuation account with Sunsuper and nearly $794,000 owed to Kemp from another bankrupt estate were also not divulged, according to the report.

That’s not all.

Mansfield is examining Kemp’s transfer earlier this year of all his shares in two companies, YPMEK Pty Ltd and Supple Skin Co Pty Ltd, to his missus, Candace.

YPMEK (that’s Kempy backwards) was the registered owner of three luxury homes at Hope Island. Two of them have been sold this year for collectively more than $2.5m.

Supple Skin is a skincare business now solely-owned by Candace Kemp, an Instagram devotee who also co-founded the Coco Bliss café group and is involved with beauty firm Fluff Brow Co.

“As my investigations are continuing, consideration will be given to the material impact of any non-disclosure and other possible offences,’’ Mansfield wrote.

Kemp, who claimed in his submission that he had no annual income in the past 12 months, could not be reached for comment Friday.

As we revealed last weekend, Kemp recently started operating a no-win/no fee “personal injury assistance’’ referral service trading as Kemp Help to send clients to outside law firms.

Both the Queensland Law Society and Legal Services Commission have launched investigations after receiving complaints about that business, which shut down its website over the past week.

Meanwhile, it’s understood that a number of the 250 or so client files held by Kemp’s now-defunct law firm have ended up at Brisbane practice Diane Lawyers.

That firm was only launched in late May by Diane Masselos, who previously spent nearly four years at CGA Law.

CGA filed a lawsuit in June to wind up Diane Lawyers, which is defending the case. Masselos did not return our call this week.