The new Hemisphere Technologies Australia goes under

Security distributor, Hemisphere Technologies Australia, was placed under external administration on 3 April.

Hemisphere Technologies Australia, which was also briefly known as Thousand Hands Technologies, was registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in June 2016.

The name, however, was the result of the acquisition of assets of another distributor named Hemisphere Technologies, now registered under the name ACN 152 546 453.

Hong Kong business investor, Harry Cheung, acquired assets from the previously existing company in December 2017. The former entity known as Hemisphere Technologies was subsequently liquidated.

Hemisphere Technologies Australia, however, found itself facing headwinds from certain legal matters inherited with the brand name.

The distributor also took on the old business's employees and their entitlements. But the new company went further in order to maintain a relationship with some vendors that the previous entity owed money to. Indeed, the new Hemisphere decided to took on some of those debts. But not all of it.

As previously reported, Kaspersky Lab had been chasing the business formerly known as Hemisphere Technologies over alleged non-payment of royalties.

The cyber security vendor claimed $3.4 million from the original Hemisphere Technologies with only $295,000 being recognised by the entity's liquidators.

Andrew Mamonitis, a shareholder with the new Hemisphere -- who was an employee of the liquidated entity, ACN 152 546 453, after joining the company from Kaspersky Lab Australia, where he'd been a managing director -- told ARN that one of the suppliers owed money from the old entity decided to come after the new Hemisphere Technologies Australia business.

ARN understands the supplier in question is Kaspersky Lab.

"We spent quite a little bit of time and money going back and forth, explaining that the business was registered with ASIC after and has no relation with the old entity," Mamonitis told ARN.

"We were in a lose-lose situation and even though we don’t owe that money and it is not our responsibility, we are only a small distributor and we don’t have the means to go through lengthy and costly proceedings … even if we were to win the case we would probably burden the business with legal fees."

Mamonitis said he had extensive talks with the vendor, providing reports and information proving that one business was separate from the other. He even visited the company in the US, leaving under the impression they had understood these were two completely separate entities.

"It is a really unfortunate situation, we got blindsided … we still know that it had nothing to do with us," Mamonitis said.

"I feel for the team because we were exhibiting strong growth, we brought in some new vendors in the recent times … things were going well so I feel more for the team. They gave their heart and soul for the business and to have something that comes out of the blue that is beyond our control is just disappointing, but unavoidable," he said.

Kaspersky Lab did not respond to ARN's request for comment at the time of writing.

Hemisphere Technologies Australia will now be wound up, as it was resolved in a meeting of the members of the company on 3 April who appointed James Patrick Downey from JP Downey as a liquidator.

Downey told ARN that the company had a total of six employees for some time going down to two just before it stopped trading a few days ago.

Hemisphere Technologies Australia started trading officially in December 2016. The company was renamed to Thousand Hands Technologies in March 2017, a decision that lasted until September the same year when the company decided to change its name back to Hemisphere.

In March 2017, the company named Kirk Jones as its channel director; however Jones left roughly three months after his appointment to join Counterparts Technology.

Craig Kratz, who had been a sales and channel director with the company since July 2013, also left in September 2017 to join cyber security partner, Vectra Corporation, as its security solutions director.