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 been released by the Attorney-General’s
23/03/2023
Liquidator discipline outcome – reasons unknown
A discipline committee has cancelled the registration of a liquidator but declined to publish its reasons for doing so. ASIC has advised by media release
17/03/2023
Bankrupt succeeds in gaining access to trustees’ notice to produce
A bankrupt has successfully obtained a copy of a s 77A notice to produce served by his trustees on the police which resulted in 600,000
21/02/2023
Breach of an undertaking not to enter insolvency, an undertaking that was “not worth the paper it was written on”
In a penalty judgment against GetSwift, Justice Michael Lee had some comment to make about GetSwift’s entry into voluntary liquidation in 2022 despite undertakings earlier
17/02/2023
Peak indebtedness and preferences – an Australian authority now “offering a considered analysis of the rule”
The High Court of Australia has found that the peak indebtedness rule has no place in Australian law in the calculation of the amount claimable
08/02/2023
Personal insolvency reform in Australia
The government is convening a “national roundtable with key stakeholders” on 2 March 2023 in relation to personal insolvency law under the Bankruptcy Act. This
03/02/2023
DOCAs – should ‘not much of a return to creditors but better than the liquidation alternative’ be enough?
Issued June 2021, re-issued January 2023 The WA Supreme Court has dismissed a challenge to deeds of company arrangement (DOCAs) that offered ‘not much of
22/01/2023
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 legal regime is an issue
20/01/2023
ASIC’s report on small business corporate restructurings under Part 5.3B
I am dubious about many of the outcomes touted for insolvency “restructurings”, or at least without the negative outcomes reported as well, to put the
17/01/2023
Bankruptcy data 2021-2022 – rates of return, fees etc
At the end of 2022, AFSA quietly released detailed data on the operation of the personal insolvency system in 2021-2022. Some extracted figures and comments
07/01/2023
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 the business, it may not
04/01/2023
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 and Exits, the point was
04/01/2023
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 into corporate insolvency,[1] more so
02/01/2023
Relationships of a liquidator and conflicts of interest
A general purpose liquidator has been found to have had a conflict of interest because a former legal adviser to several of the companies in
30/12/2022
Repair and maintenance
The operating system of Murrays Legal is undergoing repair and maintenance, to address a slow-down in its usual thoughtful articles appearing in recent times. Readers
20/12/2022
Penalties imposed on debt agreement administrator for false and misleading, threatening and coercive conduct against debtors
ASIC has succeeded in obtaining penalties against A & M group for false and misleading threatening and coercive conduct against debtors who had missed payments
16/12/2022
Abolition of the AAT, and its insolvency law matters
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal is to be abolished we are told and replaced by a new administrative law review body in 2023: see Government to
16/12/2022
The gender gap in insolvency
An article in the latest Insolvency Law Bulletin – The gender gap among Australian liquidators,[1] by Paulina Fishman – comments on the fact that only
14/12/2022
Insolvent assetless MSMEs – all but forgotten?
My commentary of October 2020 is re-issued, for readers’ interest. Does it matter that a company is insolvent such that something should be done by
14/12/2022
Rethinking Insolvency Practitioner Remuneration – Insolvency Law Bulletin
Had the decision in Re HRL Limited (in liq) [2022] VSC 693, allowing a “success fee” on insolvency practitioner (IP) remuneration, been handed down in
06/12/2022
The latest Insolvency Law Bulletin – remuneration, trading trusts, financial product collapses, gender, and more
In the latest issue of the Insolvency Law Bulletin, we have an article on a simpler solution to insolvent trading trusts, by Olivia Newman, of
06/12/2022
What is it about bankruptcy?
It was November 2015 that the then government announced a proposed reduction in the period of restrictions of bankruptcy to one year. No change was
28/11/2022
TIP – The Insolvency Portal
My 2022 versions of the Bankruptcy Act and the Corporations Act retain much of the process and procedure found in my 1914 edition of Williams
27/11/2022
Receiver’s demand for documents made on a bankrupt director
The New Zealand Court of Appeal has found that a director, despite being bankrupt, must hand over documents of the company of which he was
18/11/2022