As I said earlier, possibly Bill Express will continue. Here is the announcement where they claim they can do it.
If they do continue, I do know many newsagents that intend to keep Bill Express!
It could happen as parts of it are profitable. So what creditors usually do is agree to take the profitable parts of the company and dispose of the rest so they can get something. However here the creditors have a vested interest in this network to continue! For example about 70% of newsagents because of Bill Express are on an ANZ EFTpos deal. That EFTpos is worth a fortune to the ANZ. Think how quickly they could lose that, if the Bill Express terminals closed? Also ANZ have admitted in their announcements that this issue is really worrying their shareholder so they want the Bill Express matter resolved AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Similarly Optus is losing thousands of dollars a week because these terminals are not working. Worse for Optus would be if the network continues they stay out and Vodafone comes back.
How does this affect the class actions by newsagents? Probably zero. I am sure the new financer of this new Bill Express will make sure that their funds and this new organisation is safe. These newsagents are looking at years in courts, by then many of them will be long gone from the industry. Then whatever monies is left after the lawyers and the employees’ goes to the secured creditors and so on till finally to them where if anything is left it will be shared out with the others such as the shareholders who will argue that they are unsecured creditors too, Optus, ANZ etc.
