DRAW PICTURES

Please find attached a forum post from Mike Freedman regarding Draw Pictures. As this may affect some of you directly we have included the post in full - it provides details of the liquidation of Draw Pictures and contact details for creditors.

Regards, ADA

MESSAGE BEGINS:

Howdy folks.  I've been chasing Draw Pictures for payment since December and, having met others that are owed money from even earlier, decided to organise a visit to their office to get us all paid.  In the process of ringing round, I was told by a DoP that they had been shut down last Friday.  I immediately called their office and got the answerphone.

Using the magic of Google, I got the mobile number of one of their MDs, Patrick, and called him.  He told me that they had been in arrears on their account to Panavision, who demanded complete payment.  When they said they couldn't pay the full amount, Panavision forced them into liquidation.  As of last Friday, Draw is no longer a functioning business.  What does this mean for anyone with an outstanding invoice?  Read on.

The liquidators are Harris Lipman LLC.  The way it usually works is apparently that the unpaid invoices are filed, noted and then apportioned an appropriate percentage of the total liquidated assets of the company.  This of course requires that the invoices are on Draw's system or in their files as unpaid.  When I called Beryl at Draw last week about my invoice, she admitted that the producer on the job hadn't even filed it yet so I had to send a copy by email!  This being three months after the job!  This gives me the suspicion that a lot of people probably won't even be on the books as a creditor for the liquidators to see.  The liquidators will be sending out letters explaining the situation to all registered creditors in the coming weeks.

I called Harris Lipman to speak to someone.  The guy handling the Draw liquidation is Michael Levine.  The telephone number of the company is 020 8446 9000.  If Draw owe you money, either call Michael Levine tomorrow or next week when he's back in the office to get a copy of your invoice to them just in case they don't already have it on the books.

On the phone, Patrick was playing the victim as if it was the insensitivity of Panavision that drove them into liquidation rather than their own bad management.  It's worrying that Panavision needed the money badly enough to force someone into liquidation.  Also, is this going to be an isolated case or are the dominoes about to start falling in our industry like they have been on the high street?  After this experience I have a lot less confidence in waiting 30 days for payment and will be much more antsy about my outstanding invoices in future.

Hopefully we will all get paid something in the end.  Now if you'll excuse me, all this talk of liquidation has made me thirsty.

MESSAGE ENDS.