Courts professions and regulation
Small business insolvency advice via the Ombudsman
The federal government’s current focus on personal insolvency law reform coincides with Small Business Month in NSW and the Small ...
“Voluntarily becoming bankrupt” – the new bankruptcy process
A person goes voluntarily bankrupt in Australia by completing an online “Bankruptcy Form” with the Official Receiver. What is now ...
Deregistered / dissolved companies – let them be?
The UK Insolvency Service has been granted new investigative and disqualification powers to regulate directors who ‘dissolve’ (in Australian terms, ...
Deregistered/dissolved companies – let them be?
The UK Insolvency Service has been granted new investigative and disqualification powers to regulate directors who ‘dissolve’ (in Australian terms, ...
Insolvent insolvency practitioners?
An Australian insolvency industry body – ARITA – has suggested that the law should be changed to allow insolvency practitioners ...
UK’s proposed single insolvency regulator – beware Australian comparisons [revised]
After some long period of deliberation, the UK government has decided to itself take a direct role in the regulation ...
Australian bankruptcy statistics 2019-2021
Numbers of Australia’s 3 year long bankruptcies were down 46.7% in 2020-2021, producing an average dividend of only 1.63c/$. The ...
Unconscionable and immoral corporate conduct – nothing personal
In imposing a $153 million penalty on the Australian Institute of Professional Education, already in liquidation, for its “deliberate and ...
Any insolvency remuneration review as sought by ASIC “would be unprincipled and ultimately, wholly pointless”
From the opening paragraphs, one can foresee the outcome of this decision, about ASIC’s “unprincipled and pointless” intervention to deny ...
High level of business bankruptcies in construction and retail
Latest figures show that nearly 60% of personal bankruptcies in the construction industry were involved in a business, with those ...
Proposed New Zealand law restricting investigating accountants taking insolvency appointments
A bill introduced into the New Zealand parliament would mean that if ABC Insolvency Firm took a role as investigating ...
Rethinking insolvency law – a follow up
We are pleased to see some further responses to our early ideas on reform of the structure of the insolvency ...
High Court confirms principles of judicial independence
The High Court of Australia has found that social communications between a judge and a lawyer for a litigant in ...
Electronic delivery of documents in bankruptcy and liquidation – continued
In my earlier comments trying to work out why we now have unharmonized drafting approaches and rules for electronic service ...
UK insolvency practitioners – “evidence of intimidation, deception, dishonesty and even misappropriation of assets”?
A very critical report on the insolvency profession in the UK – Resolving-Insolvency-APPG-on-Fair-Business-Banking-and-Humphries-Kerstetter.pdf (appgbanking.org.uk) has come from the All Party ...
Reinventing the Australian Insolvency System
At a seminar on 4 August 2021, Jason Harris and I presented our ideas on reform of the insolvency system ...
Judicial impartiality report awaits the High Court decision in Charisteas – more dancing on pinheads
Following a recent Australian Law Reform Commission seminar – Impartiality from both sides of the Bench | ALRC – held ...
Objections to a bankrupt’s 3 year discharge in Australia – mixed messages and unfair law
Apart from Australian law imposing a long period for a person to be subject to the restrictions and stigma of ...
You call that a lockdown? Australia’s bankruptcy laws
If those in small business think the lockdowns are tough, for weeks or even months at a time, the government ...
ASIC’s corporate plan, and the 27 August hearing before the PJC
With ASIC having appeared before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services on 27 August 2021, ASIC’s Corporate ...
Review of Australia’s safe harbour protection from insolvent trading – remember s 588HA [updated]
The federal government has finally made arrangements to have Australia’s “safe harbour” from insolvent trading law reviewed – s 588GA, ...
What do creditors get from ‘successful’ recovery actions by insolvency practitioners?
A Judge has ordered that Trustees in bankruptcy file “evidence that identifies the benefits the creditors of the bankrupt estate ...
Cleaning up after failed oil and mining operations – new New Zealand laws, and other ideas
The cost of environmental clean-up of mining and other resource projects where the company has gone into liquidation is a ...
The contributions of bankruptcy trustees to AFSA’s regulation of criminal conduct
Bankruptcy trustees, and liquidators, and creditors in insolvencies, contribute much to the government, in effect for free. In a recent ...