Law reform
Corporate mergers, acquisitions etc and restructuring – need to notify ACCC
ARITA, TMA [1] and others in the business restructuring field have protested about the impact of the new merger laws ...
Personal business liabilities and the World Bank’s B-Ready review of our insolvency laws
The World Bank’s B-Ready review process will be applied this year, 2026, to Australia’s business laws, including “business insolvency”, according ...
“Small business” insolvency data
The regular insolvency statistics were released by ASIC (corporate) and AFSA (personal) at the end of 2025 but with a ...
Combatting financial abuse perpetrated through coerced directorships
Moving from its militaristic combatting phoenix activity, the government is now going to crack down and combat financial abuse perpetrated ...
An outline of arguments supporting a combined personal and corporate insolvency regime for small business
This explains our law reform project seeking to have a combined regime for personal and corporate insolvency for small corporate ...
“Who’s making us bankrupt?” or “what are debtors doing about it?”
Financial Counselling Australia (FCA) has called for “urgent” reforms to Australia’s bankruptcy laws after releasing its report, “Who’s Making Australians Bankrupt? ...
Who owns, and owes, what in a typical incorporated small business?
The regular insolvency statistics have been released by ASIC (corporate) and AFSA (personal), but with a current focus on insolvency ...
A corporate rescue regime should reflect some alignment with economic efficiency?
In order to stir comments on a forthcoming talk that I was giving on the law and economics of insolvency ...
New criteria for corporate restructuring?
I was pleased to have presented some ideas on ‘filtering mechanisms’ for corporate restructuring at the annual insolvency academics network ...
A government perspective on insolvency law reform
Dr Andrew Leigh is probably the first minister to oversee both personal and corporate insolvency, following the transfer of personal ...
Acronymic insolvency reform options – PJC not CAMAC
Those lawyers wanting a restoration of CAMAC to sort out the complexity of the Corporations Act can leave Chapter 5 ...
A controversial bankruptcy, from the archives – Alan Bond
The bankruptcy of Alan Bond in the 1990s generated outraged sentiment and language which we may not feel and use ...
Confidential settlement of an insolvent trading claim – why?
It would be an act of both supererogation and superfluity to superimpose observations on this synthesis. The Federal Court has ...
The use of data – when we can get it – in shaping law reform
Treasury Minister Dr Andrew Leigh has spoken of the merits and the need for data to assist in shaping government ...
Maybe we should just repeal s 588G – insolvent trading?
The law of insolvent trading under s 588G of the Corporations Act seems eternally unsatisfactory and always open to review. ...
Bankruptcy law prevails …
Some time ago, in what may have been a marketing or plain English push, the bankruptcy regulator, AFSA, determined that, ...
The benefits of behavioural economics in law reform
In his address at the launch of the Canberra Behavioural Lab, on 28 August 2025, Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, ...
Means to accelerate our ability to share and use data productively
Having myself nearly said enough over the years about the lack of data on the operation of the insolvency system, ...
Dealing with assetless estates
An interesting article appears in (2025) International Insolvency Review 1 of INSOL International concerning how different jurisdictions deal with assetless ...
The ATO as the real Pt 5.3B ‘small business restructure’ regulator?
Some years ago, I wrote an article entitled The ATO as an insolvency regulator,[1] suggesting that with the various insolvency ...
Have corporate rescue laws gone too far? Sydney Law School seminar review
This reports on a review by Dr Arthur Emmett, former Federal Court Judge, of a Sydney Law School seminar questioning ...
Court approval of agreements over 3 months?!
Any productivity review of the insolvency system in Australia would find many opportunities to reduce time and costs, in particular ...
The interaction of insolvency law and competition policy
My recent article in the Insolvency Law Bulletin concerns what has been described as the clash between market competition policy ...
Legislating in the dark – continued – IMF Report
The 2023 Parliamentary Joint Committee Report on Corporate Insolvency called for the collection and analysis of data in advance of ...