Case and statute law
ASIC v Bettles – case dismissed, with costs
ASIC has lost a major Federal Court proceeding brought against a senior and experienced liquidator, Jason Bettles, alleging that his ...
“Record penalties” imposed … against insolvent companies
While much is made of the “record penalties of $438m” penalties imposed on the Phoenix Institute and related companies for ...
Cancellation of a liquidator’s registration
While England is still deciding whether to change its system of insolvency practitioner regulation from one of co-regulation by professional ...
Insolvency practitioner independence – how commercial is the fair-minded observer?
A pending WA appeal decision may address the issue of the extent to which commercial considerations surrounding the appointment of ...
Now we have three Part 5.3B restructuring practitioners
One more person has been appointed as a restructuring practitioner to conduct administrations under Part 5.3B of the Corporations Act ...
Liquidator discipline outcome – reasons unknown
A discipline committee has cancelled the registration of a liquidator but declined to publish its reasons for doing so. ASIC ...
Bankrupt succeeds in gaining access to trustees’ notice to produce
A bankrupt has successfully obtained a copy of a s 77A notice to produce served by his trustees on the ...
Breach of an undertaking not to enter insolvency, an undertaking that was “not worth the paper it was written on”
In a penalty judgment against GetSwift, Justice Michael Lee had some comment to make about GetSwift’s entry into voluntary liquidation ...
DOCAs – should ‘not much of a return to creditors but better than the liquidation alternative’ be enough?
Issued June 2021, re-issued January 2023 The WA Supreme Court has dismissed a challenge to deeds of company arrangement (DOCAs) ...
Relationships of a liquidator and conflicts of interest
A general purpose liquidator has been found to have had a conflict of interest because a former legal adviser to ...
Penalties imposed on debt agreement administrator for false and misleading, threatening and coercive conduct against debtors
ASIC has succeeded in obtaining penalties against A & M group for false and misleading threatening and coercive conduct against ...
Abolition of the AAT, and its insolvency law matters
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal is to be abolished we are told and replaced by a new administrative law review body ...
Receiver’s demand for documents made on a bankrupt director
The New Zealand Court of Appeal has found that a director, despite being bankrupt, must hand over documents of the ...
NSW clubs and their insolvency appointments
The NSW Registered Clubs Act 1976 has a quaint provision – s 41 – providing that an insolvency appointee such ...
Ownership is sometimes but not always as it seems – presumptions for, presumptions against, and evidence
A ‘wife’ has succeeded before the High Court in preventing the ATO claiming what it argued was her husband’s interest ...
Lawyers’ “grossly inflated” costs estimates
A Judge has dismissed a respondent’s application for security for costs that contained estimates that were “grossly inflated, far beyond ...
International insolvency case law from New Zealand and the UK
The universal nature of much of insolvency law is such that many of its principles apply across jurisdictions, with a ...
Class actions and litigation funding – New Zealand law reform report
While Australia is in the midst of some potential change in the law about litigation funding,[1] the New Zealand Law ...
Reprimand and more for a liquidator – that’s about as much as we know
By a media release ASIC has reported that a disciplinary committee has decided to reprimand a liquidator, Nicholas Crouch, under ...
“The [too high] costs of insolvency”?
The Age newspaper in Australia has reported on what it describes as the “often extremely heavy” costs in administering insolvencies ...
“National interest insolvencies” – creditors vs the public interest?
At a seminar in London on 11 May 2022 – National Interest Insolvencies – Should these be for the State ...
Insolvency disclaimer or state control – furnaces and coke ovens, pyrophoric iron sulphide and methane, effluent lagoons and asbestos …
The High Court of Australia has dismissed the liquidators’ application for special leave to appeal in Australian Sawmilling because the ...
FEG claim against receivers over circulating assets
The Fair Entitlements Guarantee [FEG] scheme through the Commonwealth has obtained orders delaying the deregistration of a company to allow ...
Why do we have preference recoveries in insolvency? – updated
The High Court of Australia (Keane and Gleeson JJ) has granted the liquidators special leave to appeal from the Full ...
