Inquiries conferences and reports
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
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’ ...
UK’s plan to give great access to corporate data, beneficial ownership etc
In What has happened to the proposed beneficial ownership of shares register? in February 2020, I asked what has happened ...
Some parliamentary reminders for ASIC’s 2020 annual report
The 1 September 2020 report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services on the 2018–2019 annual report ...
Courts ‘should be wary of [liquidator] disclaimers where environmental liabilities are to be passed onto taxpayers or innocent persons’
A court has set aside liquidators’ disclaimer of contaminated property on a challenge by the environmental regulator. Particularly in a ...
Corporate Criminal Responsibility – final ALRC report
The Australian Law Reform Commission report, Corporate Criminal Responsibility (ALRC 136), was tabled in Parliament on 31 August 2020. The ...
Insolvency and debtor in possession – hospital or home care?
If Joe thought he might have a serious medical condition, but did not want to go to hospital for a ...
The potential for conflicts of interest in professional co-regulation
Referrals to a disciplinary committee of two senior insolvency practitioners with connections prompt my further explanations of Australia’s insolvency practitioner ...
Extension of insolvent trading concessions – flake news?
Someone government person called Andrew is saying that the insolvent trading protections for directors will be extended beyond 25 September ...
Funding of insolvency claims – the PJC inquiry: revised
A submission by Adelaide academics in relation to insolvency litigation funding came before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on 24 July, ...
Ombudsman’s company insolvency recommendations
The ASBFEO (Ombudsman) has asked that the government fix what is said to be a broken corporate insolvency system in ...
Company deregistration – government’s fast track response to assetless companies
Fast-tracking insolvent assetless companies through a default de-registration process was introduced, in effect, by the Insolvency Law Reform Act 2016 ...
How is Australia’s safe harbour from insolvent trading working? some survey results
An article by Professor Ian Ramsay and Associate Professor Stacey Steele has just been published reporting on survey responses of ...
Regulation of insolvency practitioners by accounting bodies
The outcomes of co-regulation of UK insolvency practitioners are explained in a May 2020 report of the ICAEW, with some ...
Australian Small Business Ombudsman’s ‘COVID-19 Recovery Plan’ – ‘turnaround and insolvency’
The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman has issued a COVID-19 Recovery Plan, of May 2020. Within that the ...
