Courts professions and regulation
Safe harbour adviser becoming liquidator
A liquidator gave pre-liquidation safe harbour advice under s 588GA of the Corporations Act to a company. The company ended ...
The do-not-call register – penalties according to literature and history
In a long judgment concerning breach of the ‘do not call register’, where 1,102,318 calls were made to numbers on ...
The new law’s limitations in controlling phoenix misconduct
I wrote the following commentary in February 2020, on the then proposed new anti-phoenix law, to assist the Department of ...
Personal insolvencies in 2024 – well under half the numbers in 2018
Numbers of personal insolvencies in 2024, while slowly increasing, remain at well under half their number in 2018. There were: ...
Setting aside a personal insolvency agreement – on a tip-off
The Inspector-General in Bankruptcy has succeeded in having a debtor’s Part X personal insolvency agreement (PIA) of 1 March 2024 ...
A suspended liquidator’s reinstatement – a Kafkaesque journey?
ASIC Professional Registers Search Details A search of ASIC’s Professional Registers shows that Peter Macks is now registered by ASIC ...
Leroy and the [still] missing bankruptcy funds
The claim against former bankruptcy trustee Paul Leroy drifts on, with a mere ‘case management conference’ in the Federal Court ...
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? ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 – ...
A confused director
A challenge to a winding up demand served on Lifestyle Homes (ACT) Pty Ltd over the omission of the words ...
Are pecuniary penalties actually paid?
One enforcement tool of regulators is to obtain a court ordered civil penalty against the respondent company or individual. That ...
AFSA’s annual report on personal insolvency?
The AFSA 2023–24 Annual Report has been released, reporting on the information required under particular public sector legislation. Unlike ASIC, ...
Litigation Funding in Insolvency and in Class Actions
This queries corporate insolvency’s requirement for approval of liquidators’ litigation funding in the context of an article comparing litigation funding ...
Insolvency practitioner remuneration – continued ….
A report in a daily newspaper[1] has commented on the large fees earner by liquidators and administrators in attending to ...
What is the future of insolvency practice?
In my reply to an interesting comment from a practitioner about the fundamental difficulties of lack of funding for insolvency ...
The need for a new process for the appointment of insolvency practitioners?
A Judge has expressed concern about the processes for the appointment of insolvency practitioners, suggesting adverse relationships with their lawyers, ...