Inquiries conferences and reports

Corporations Act redrafting – ch 5?

Some years ago, I suggested to a Treasury officer that Ch 5 of the Corporations Act be redrafted and simplified.  ...

Insolvency statistics 2023

Each of our insolvency regulators, ASIC for corporate, AFSA for personal, has issued its statistics for 2022-2023 right on the ...

Bankruptcy statistics – more of the same

With the annual personal insolvency statistics for 2022-2023 not yet released, AFSA has released figures for October 2023, showing 951 ...

Language please….!

“Finally on the subject of language, the Commission staff are not to be blamed for the archaic forms of syntax ...

Personal insolvency numbers – July-Sept 2023

With the annual personal insolvency statistics for 2022-2023 not due until December 2023, AFSA has released a quarterly report for ...

“Shock horror – insolvent people don’t have many assets”

While we wait for the useful annual statistics from AFSA as to dividend returns in bankruptcies in 2022-2023,* an insolvency ...

Insolvent trading in context

Insolvent trading is one of the many items for review recommended by the Parliamentary Joint Committee report on Corporate Insolvency.  ...

Annual reports 2022-2023: of ASIC – ‘a deliberate strategy of obfuscation so that the public is kept in the dark ….’? and of AFSA

ASIC’s ASIC Annual Report 2022–23 has been released amidst some recent severe criticism of the quality of its annual reports ...

Regulation of firms offering insolvency services

Further to my earlier post on insolvency practitioner (IP) regulation in the UK, and contrary to expectations,[1] the UK government ...

‘Masculinity contest cultures’, and gender imbalance?

Evidence before the Parliamentary Joint Committee inquiry into Ethics and Professional Accountability [1] (PJC inquiry) may assist in considering the ...

Insolvent Trading and Minimal Returns to Creditors in Liquidations

This is a brief response to a well-researched and thoughtful article by Associate Professor Mark Wellard – Insolvent Trading: Director ...

Some insolvency law reform ideas from Scotland and New Zealand

“ … the state is, effectively, paying insolvency practitioners to end the life of small companies … a sub-optimal solution ...

The cross-border regulation of insolvency practitioners – insights from INSOL Tokyo

I was invited to present at the INSOL International Academic Colloquium on 12 September 2023 in Tokyo on the panel ...

Public interest supports time extension for insolvency recovery action

Litigation claims brought by insolvency practitioners (IPs) are not like the usual commercial claims on behalf of a commercial, or ...

Cross-border regulation of insolvency practitioners – INSOL Tokyo – where are the government regulators?

This commentary has now been updated.  See The cross-border regulation of insolvency practitioners – Murrays Legal ============================================== I was pleased ...

The government halts its Modernising Business Registers Program after an independent review

The federal government has announced it will stop its Modernising Business Registers (MBR) program following independent review findings that the ...

PJC Recommendation – Pre-Insolvency Advisers – Part 1: summary

The full article on this topic of 1800 words, for those interested, looks that the PJC Report recommendations about “untrustworthy ...

PJC recommendation – pre-insolvency advisers – Part 1

The PJC Report on Corporate Insolvency 2023 has responded to concerns expressed about “untrustworthy pre-insolvency advisers”, those that are said ...

Sunlight on pre-insolvency advisers

Updated 14.8.23: While pondering the 2023 Parliamentary Joint Committee’s recommendations about pre-insolvency advisers, I am reminded to go back to ...

UK personal insolvency reforms – summary of responses and next steps

In my comments of July 2023 following, I reviewed the 2022 call for evidence in the UK on reform of ...

Businesses are rarely neatly arranged when insolvency strikes

While the government is thinking about the various recommendations of the PJC Report[1] about improving our current corporate insolvency laws, ...

ASIC beleaguered – updated

Updated 29 July 2023. Given the number of current and on-going inquiries into ASIC, it is as if the regulator ...

Liquidator remuneration is “a perfect example of the many competing interests that arise in a liquidation” …

and is “indicative of broader systemic factors within the insolvency system itself …”. The recent PJC Report on corporate insolvency ...

Looking more at deregistered companies

“Enforcement agencies have long been aware of the role that the abandonment [deregistration] of companies plays in illegal phoenix activity. ...