Dramatic fall in personal insolvency numbers
The number of personal insolvencies fell by over 28% in the period July to December 2024. If that trend continues, the number of personal insolvencies in 2024-2025 may be well under 10,000, compared with 11,644 in 2023-2024. The drop in numbers was from 1157 in July 2024 to only 828 in December 2024, a fall […]
The latest from AFSA – stats, regulation, advisers, debtors’ petitions
AFSA has issued its latest Personal Insolvency Regulator newsletter for January 2025 containing reports on Statistics – are numbers plateauing? Business insolvencies … Regulation – AFSA is the 4th highest referrer of summary offences to the DPP and the 5th highest for indictable offences. AFSA’s vulnerability strategy Untrustworthy advice – the scale of which is […]
Small corporate business restructuring – Part I
This is a brief review, in two parts, of the small corporate business restructuring process under Part 5.3B of the Corporations Act. Some articles and on-line comment give a more detailed and critical coverage of the process than is available from firms’ marketing. A report from ASIC also gives some useful statistics. More is needed […]
Annual [2023-2024] personal insolvency statistics
Dividend payments to creditors in bankruptcies in 2023-24 averaged only 2.42c in the dollar. Registered bankruptcy trustees took in more than $253 million in receipts with proceeds of asset sales at 54% being the main source; and they paid out more than $254 million, of which their trustee remuneration was $74 million and dividends to […]
“Deliberate and ruthless” competition policy in action
The higher than usual number of corporate insolvencies in 2024 may indicate that healthy but tough competition, driving efficiency and productivity, is at work. In what is a free enterprise economy, competition between firms is a significant driver of economic efficiency and productivity. Competition policy focuses on the winners as the group to support and […]
A suspended liquidator’s reinstatement – a Kafkaesque journey?
A liquidator whose registration was suspended for 3 years by the court in 2021 has succeeded in 2025 in overturning a decision by ASIC that as he had not maintained his required insurance cover (which was not available during his period of suspension), he had to apply all over again to become a registered liquidator. […]
Ariff and insolvency practitioner regulation
It is interesting to compare the rather muted reaction to millions of dollars missing from three insolvent estates in Sydney with the extreme reaction, over 15 years ago, to the criminal misconduct of Mr Stuart Ariff, a sole practice liquidator from Newcastle. While we don’t need a repetition of the media hysteria that we had […]
Thousands and thousands of business collapses?
A rather dramatic headline, political only, warning that an extra 10,000 businesses will go under by June 2025 might best be seen only as a Pharmacy Guild type hype for political purposes, not worth responding to.[1] But perhaps it bears some simple comment, at least. Here are four points, there may be others. Context – […]
How long does it take to disqualify a director?
Fifteen years after a director’s first misconduct, and seven years after his companies went into liquidation, ASIC has reported by media release its achievement of disqualifying the director from managing corporations. The misconduct included a failure to lodge a 2024-2025 income tax return; the failure to register for an ABN or tax file number, to […]
Personal insolvency numbers remain low – AFSA report
AFSA has released a useful report on personal insolvencies in 2023-2024, with some predictions as to the future. State of Personal Insolvency Report released for 2024 | Australian Financial Security Authority The report also refers to AFSA’s regulatory processes and achievements, including action to challenge a Part X agreement. Low numbers Of Australia’s adult population […]
Australia’s suggested update of UNCITRAL’s Cross-Border Insolvency Guide
The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Working Group V (Insolvency Law) is meeting this week 16-20 December 2024 in Vienna. Its two main issues for consideration are the legal issues arising from asset tracing and recovery in insolvency proceedings; and the applicable law in insolvency proceedings. Also, UNCITRAL reports that on 8 October […]
Former liquidator sentenced to 4 years jail; ASIC yet to explain
ASIC reports that former registered liquidator Peter Andrew Amos was sentenced on 13 December 2024 in the District Court of NSW to four years imprisonment after pleading guilty to charges of dishonestly using his position with the intention of gaining an advantage for his business and himself contrary to s 184(2)(a) of the Corporations Act. 24-281MR […]
The costs of insolvency practitioner regulation
ASIC has released its analysis of the costs of regulation of liquidators; AFSA has issued comparable analyses of the costs of regulation of trustees. ASIC’s cost of regulating liquidators was $7.481m in 2023-2024. There is no evident way of making regulatory cost efficiency assessments because each of ASIC and AFSA is separately regulated by different […]
Former liquidator sentenced to 4 years jail, 2 years non-parole
Former liquidator, Mr Peter Amos, has been sentenced to 4 years imprisonment, 2 years non-parole, for misappropriation of around $2.5m in breach of the Corporations Act, extending from 2016 to December 2022. Further details soon. Further details will also be provided on any report from ASIC, and ARITA, CAANZ and the other industry bodies on […]
Public regulators aren’t to blame for private enterprise misconduct, ok?
In a rather sad comment on standards of conduct in many parts of the private enterprise sector, ASIC has listed the range of industries and misconduct and illegality which it has the task, as matters of priority, to regulate and prevent. These include the exploitation of superannuation savings, promotion of unscrupulous property investment schemes; failures […]
Financial abuse report – corporate, tax, bankruptcy and family law conduct
Among the 61 recommendations of the Report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) on Corporations and Financial Services – Financial abuse: an insidious form of domestic violence of December 2024 are those concerning corporations and tax liabilities imposed on the ‘victims’ of financial abuse, and bankruptcy and family law issues. Financial Services Regulatory Framework in […]
Productivity inquiry into phoenix activity
The Productivity Commission (PC) has issued its National Competition Policy: modelling proposed reforms. Among proposed inquiries into electric vehicle charging and marine freight is an inquiry into phoenix activity. This is in the context of the government undertaking a two-year competition review. A key focus of the review is to ‘look at competition laws, policies […]
Courts’ statistics on their delayed judgments
As a 2025 postscript to my comments below, while it will often be difficult to anticipate the time that litigation commenced by an insolvency practitioner will take – ranging from directions to a determination of claims, it should be assumed that a decision from the court will be provided within an acceptable period. Statistics of […]
ASIC updates “guidance to help directors prevent insolvent trading”
ASIC has updated its regulatory guide for directors and their professional advisers on the duty to prevent insolvent trading – s 588G Corporations Act – and has provided new guidance on the safe harbour provisions – ss 588GA-588HA. RG 217 ASIC says that the updates to Regulatory Guide 217 Duty to prevent insolvency trading: Guide […]
A confused director
A challenge to a winding up demand served on Lifestyle Homes (ACT) Pty Ltd over the omission of the words ‘of court’ went through 5 adjournments before being dismissed. Mr Espinoza was the sole director of a company – Lifestyle Homes (ACT) Pty Ltd – that owed the ATO in excess of $4m. A […]
A further continued fall in personal insolvencies
Following my October 2024 report, below, that personal insolvencies dropped in number in each of July, August and September 2024, AFSA has now reported the numbers have continued that fall, if only slightly, in October 2024. Provisional personal insolvencies decreased in October 2024 | Australian Financial Security Authority In October 2024, there were 1,009 new […]
Not a skerrick …..
An Australian judge used the unusual word ‘skerrick’ recently, which means “a small piece or quantity” – as in “the absence of a skerrick of evidence to the contrary”.[1] The word is said to have originated in Great Britain in the early 1820s as a slang term for halfpenny.[2] Nowadays it is said to be […]
Personal insolvency numbers
AFSA has reported that personal insolvencies increased in the September quarter 2024 compared to September quarter 2023. That is, there were 3,307 new personal insolvencies in the July-September 2024 quarter, up by 199 from 3,108 in September 2023. Personal insolvencies up in September quarter 2024 | Australian Financial Security Authority Of the September quarter 2024 […]
Insolvency and competition law – two disciplines moving as parallel universes, without coordination
“Ultimately, it seems that the two disciplines move as parallel universes, without any coordination …”. Only “by linking the attempt to restructure the company in crisis to a strict review it is possible to compose the principles underlying the insolvency and competition law into a more coherent system”. businesses that do not comply with their […]
