Law reform
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, ...
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 ...
What does our insolvency system produce? [re-issued July 2023]
31 March 2022 Many of us who call for a major review of our insolvency laws must know that the ...
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. ...
Thoughts on the PJC’s Corporate Insolvency Report
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services (‘PJC’) handed down its Report into Corporate Insolvency in Australia on ...
Offence reporting by insolvency practitioners
What is said to be the limited response by ASIC to corporate misconduct reports by liquidators is the subject of ...
UK insolvency practitioners to come under direct government regulation
At the same time that the chair of the Australian PJC inquiry into corporate insolvency, Senator Deborah O’Neill, said that ...
Gender, and diversity, in insolvency practice, continued
The July 2023 PJC report into corporate insolvency[1] makes recommendations on the “problem” of the limited female representation among liquidators, ...
UK’s review of its 2020 insolvency law reforms, with Australia compared
The quality of a recent UK review of its 2020 insolvency law reforms is compared with the approach taken in ...
Increase in Australian insolvency numbers
Personal insolvency numbers show a continued increase in numbers but still well below past figures; on the other hand, corporate ...
Should the firms of insolvency practitioners be regulated, along with the practitioner?
While Australia is currently focusing on the standards of conduct of accounting firms, and their partners – see Ethics and ...
Principles of Regulation of Insolvency Practitioners – an international standard
This comment was issued in October 2018; it is re-issued in May 2023, but not updated, for interest. The rather ...
Anti-money laundering laws to be improved, including registers of beneficial owners
The 2023 budget has allocated funds for action on Anti‐Money Laundering and Counter‐Terrorism Financing (AML) laws, including a beneficial ownership ...
Insolvency law reform in Australia – three underlying concerns
With over 70 submissions from a wide variety of stakeholders and numerous answers to questions on notice, the parliamentary joint ...
Personal insolvency numbers – an increase or a decrease?
While AFSA reports that personal insolvencies increased in number in February 2023, to 796, from 772 in January, this was ...
ASIC’s insolvency law enforcement role
The Senate Economics References Committee is loading up submissions received on its reference into ASIC’s capacity and capability to “undertake ...
Attorney-General’s Roundtable on Personal Insolvency
A summary of priority issues discussed at the Attorney-General’s personal insolvency law reform roundtable held on 2 March 2023 has ...
How low can we go – funding the insolvencies of assetless estates
Obvious as it is to say, insolvency involves limited or no money, and how to fund its existence as a ...
Business bankruptcies – 6,000 to 9,000 each year
Given that ‘small business’ itself is defined in various ways, none of which is based on the legal structure of ...
Failing fast … five hundred and something days to wrap up a business?
At the PJC inquiry into corporate insolvency, in the context of the 2015 Productivity Commission (PC) Report on Business Entries ...
Parliamentary insolvency inquiry – the business model of insolvency firms
Some fundamental issues about the operation of insolvency law and practice are being raised in the joint parliamentary committee inquiry ...
