—First in a series on the litigation legacy of the Business Innovation and Investment Program
This article was written by Nancy Wang Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers.
In March 2018, Yingna Yang transferred $3.5 million to an Australian company called Axis North Pty Ltd. Within seven days the money was gone — passed to a related company, and from there to the mother of the man who controlled both. Ms Yang did not get it back. In July 2025 the Federal Court dismissed her claim with costs. In April 2026 the Full Court dismissed her appeal, again with costs.
Those two judgments — Yang v Wong [2025] FCA 693 (Derrington J) and Yang v Wong [2026] FCAFC 39 (Charlesworth, Jackman and Needham JJ) — are usually read as insolvency cases. They are important ones: the Full Court settled that the definition of “transaction” in s 588FDA of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) is narrower than the general definition in s 9, and that a “payment” from one party to another requires a change in the legal rights between them, not merely a flow of value.
But read the primary judgment closely and a second story emerges, one the appeal never touches. It is a story about why a person would hand over $3.5 million on terms that a Federal Court judge described as furnishing her with little or no protection — and about what her lawyers were, and were not, doing at the time.
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