Cross-border and international
Australia’s small business restructuring practitioners
Australia is proposing a sub-group of liquidator accountants to assist in administering its new corporate SME insolvency laws, set to ...
Whistleblowing – panel debate – Bret Walker SC, Kate McClymont, and more – 19 November
The Australian Academy of Law is hosting a free on-line seminar on whistleblowing on Thursday evening 19 November 2020 from ...
Insolvency Law Bulletin – Janus-faced SME reforms; new easy ways to avoid preferences; and how to recover gifts of money, maybe
An article in the forthcoming Insolvency Law Bulletin describes the proposed corporate SME insolvency reforms as Janus-faced,[1] the title referring ...
Data Availability and Transparency Bill and Australia’s SME insolvency reforms
Following on some decades of government inattention to the collection of adequate statistical data in insolvency, but with law reforms ...
Where’s personal insolvency nowadays? Australian parliamentary confusion
This rather painful transcript of Senate estimates hearing on 27 October 2020 illustrates many things but in particular how small ...
Singapore’s new small business restructuring and liquidation regime – a “move away from earlier efforts to ‘hold the line'”
The Singapore parliament passed the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution (Amendment) Bill 2020 on 3 November 2020. It will amend the ...
Dear Parliamentary Counsel
The Commonwealth Integrity Commission Bill 2020 is important in many respects and some would see the following aspect of it ...
Do the Australian small to medium business insolvency reforms add up?
The numbers upon which the government is relying for the proposed SME reforms[1] don’t seem to add up. Apart from ...
Is Australia’s insolvency safe harbour protection working – who knows?
The 2 year review of Australia’s safe harbour protection for directors, due from the government over a year ago, never ...
Australia’s insolvency law reforms – useful information from government officers
On 26 October 2020 the Economics Legislation Committee inquired of various Treasury officers about personal and corporate insolvency law reform, ...
Caution against “reasoning backwards” in assessing the validity of liquidators’ litigation
A judge has cautioned against “reasoning backwards” to assume that insolvency practitioners’ failed or injudicious legal proceedings either should not ...
SME insolvency reforms – a one year bankruptcy and more
The Australian government’s 2015 proposal to reduce the 3 year period for the imposition of the restrictions of bankruptcy to ...
ATO’s right to garnishee – a “privileged position … likely to result in failed corporate rescue attempts”?
A recent article Getting the priorities right: ATO garnishee notices in times of corporate distress by Sylvia Villios and David ...
Spent convictions of insolvency practitioners
According to a report from Stuff in New Zealand, a long-established liquidator has been denied permission to continue to practise ...
Transparency in the selection process of liquidators and trustees
The Insolvency Law Reform Act 2016 introduced some, let’s say, novel provisions in relation to the registration and discipline of ...
‘In the ordinary course of business’ in insolvency – why are we following wrong thinking New Zealanders?
The term ‘ordinary course of business’ in law is meant to describe a transaction that was within the normal operations ...
Choosing practitioners to administer Australian MSME insolvencies
The Australian government is presently finalising its draft SME insolvency law reform proposals. Apart from getting the law right, as ...
Who wants to be an SME insolvency practitioner? Australia’s proposed reforms
Australia proposes to follow England’s lead in giving insolvency practitioners the initial role in new debtor in possession insolvency reforms, ...
Australia’s proposed MSME insolvency reforms – an international perspective
Australia’s draft legislation to implement its announced MSME corporate insolvency reforms may have drawn more on international than local thinking, ...
Coronavirus safe harbour – beware the claytons waterfall in s 588GAAA
It is interesting to now see the clear limitations the government has placed on the protections offered by the COVID-19 ...
“industry codes with their precepts, guidance and aspirational verbiage cannot dictate the proper construction and application of the relevant statutory provisions”
Soft law in Australia takes a rather strict approach in assessing the independence of insolvency practitioners, more so than, for ...
Duties of directors of insolvent companies – New Zealand Supreme Court decision
The NZ Supreme Court has given a significant decision on the duties of directors in the face of their company’s ...
Fightback! SMEs get a new restructuring tool
The federal Treasurer has announced a new restructuring regime for struggling small to medium enterprises (SMEs)[1] which adopts a ‘debtor-in-possession’ ...
Under the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition laws, licensed New Zealand insolvency practitioners should be able to practise in Australia …
New Zealand has a new insolvency practitioner regulation regime which commenced on 1 September 2020. The regime has processes allowing ...