Creditors of HIH may have to wait a year longer for their payouts following delays in implementing a scheme that would allow liquidator Tony McGrath to distribute recovered funds, according to the Australian Financial Review (AFR).

Mr McGrath announced earlier this year that he planned to pay creditors 10 cents in the dollar by mid-2005, but that’s likely to be delayed to late this year or early next year because of hitches getting the money recovered in the UK transferred to Australia.

AFR reporter Andrew Main says Mr McGrath’s lawyers are trying to set up a way for HIH’s UK liquidator to pass across the money recovered in the UK.

Justice Reg Barrett of the NSW Supreme Court has been asked to send a letter of request to the High Court in England to make the transfer happen. He is likely to hear back from the UK in the next couple of days on how the English legal system would arrange to make the payments.

The liquidators have recovered about $2 billion in lost funds already, but the deficiency bill still stands at $5.3 billion.