Ordinary course of post – seven business days not four

Section 160 of the Commonwealth Evidence Act 1995 is proposed to be amended to change the day when posted letters are presumed to be delivered “in the ordinary course of post”.  The Civil Law and Justice Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 would change the presumed timing of delivery from the fourth to the seventh business day after posting.   That […]

Maritime review of the year

The Murrays Legal were pleased to attend the annual presentation at Norton Rose Fulbright on international maritime law developments given on 22 June 2017 by Professor Martin Davies of Tulane University Law School, and a Professorial Fellow of Melbourne Law School. These and other cases were discussed. Reiter Petroleum v The Sam Hawk What was […]

Rough bankruptcy justice all round …?

Where a person has wrongly been made bankrupt, the court will usually remedy the problem by setting aside or annulling the bankruptcy.  While the inevitable legal costs are divided up by the Court between the creditor and the debtor, depending on their degrees of responsibility, the remuneration and legal costs and other expenses of the […]

ASIC’s 2017 annual report – what to expect in insolvency regulation

Report 532 ASIC’s regulation of registered liquidators: January to December 2016 is a rather dense and detailed report which explains what work ASIC has been doing in its regulation of company liquidators. But ASIC’s 2017 annual report will be of more interest for the insolvency profession. The 532 Report “details the supervisory, enforcement, stakeholder liaison, policy […]

The AAT strikes back

Mr Dutton, the immigration minister, has been found wanting in refusing an application by a Mr Singh for a 6 week bridging visa, based upon his conviction (Singh’s), on a plea of guilty, of indecent assault. Justice John Logan of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) rejected Mr Dutton’s decision to refuse the visa, giving his reasons in a 23 page […]

Contempt of court – “arguing for days on the exact length of the split in the hair”

Immigration law and policy and has been a contentious issue in Australia, with newspapers and politicians often infuriated by interpretations of that law by judges and tribunals “failing to keep Australia white”, perhaps for the sake of sales and votes in “this great country”, but without much rational thinking in support, or at least little […]

A safe harbour from our harsh insolvency laws?!

The “safe harbour” reform bill has been introduced into federal parliament to address directors’ “medium risk” of liability for insolvent trading.  The reform represents a significant shift in favour of directors and their companies. This is a “carve out” not a defence; to the extent that a defence is required it is to the level of an […]

Accountants and NOCLAR – more than a systems update

Professional accountants in Australia will soon be bound by a new standard that could require them to report offences to the police, or, in accountants’ language, “non-compliance with laws and regulations”, or NOCLAR. This new obligation raises a number of issues which, while no doubt in hand, may involve more than an “update of systems” as the standard […]

Creditor’s examination summons of a liquidator upheld

A creditor’s summons for the section 596A public examination of the liquidator about his sale of company property has been found not to be an abuse of process. The appeal court overruled the trial judge who had found that the examination was a “substantial intrusion into the liquidation”; and that the creditor’s wish to explore the […]

Penalty privilege – one says hello, the other says goodbye

There are at least two unsatisfactory stories in this. The first one first. The High Court’s decision in Rich v ASIC was big news in 2004, finding as it did that “penalty privilege”, a component of the common law right to refuse to self-incriminate, extended to disciplinary and disqualification proceedings. The government responded in 2007, […]

When litigation goes wrong – costs certificates

Legal costs of parties to an appeal may be met by the government, to a certain amount, if there was some unfortunate outcome or circumstance in the trial hearing. The purpose of the various state and federal costs laws is that litigants should not be financially disadvantaged by a wrong application of the law by a […]