bankruptcy

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 ...

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 ...

Can insolvency practitioners afford to be generous?

The Australian bankruptcy regulator, AFSA, has published what it terms a series of “exemplar behaviour case studies [to] showcase examples ...

Small business insolvency advice via the Ombudsman

The federal government’s current focus on personal insolvency law reform coincides with Small Business Month in NSW and the Small ...

Sole traders and insolvency

A report on the financial business health of Australian small business takes the novel approach of looking at sole traders. ...

The new Attorney-General and business bankruptcies

As the new Attorney-General, Senator Michaelia Cash[1] will find her portfolio encompasses the current law reform debate about whether and ...

Does small business count?

This Ombudsman’s follow up report – Small Business Counts – examines small to medium business enterprises (SMEs) from an economics ...

Bankruptcy seems to be the hardest word

The government has not said anything about insolvency law reform for financially struggling individual small business operators among its claimed ...

Extension of the COVID-19 insolvency protections – what’s the real problem?

The Australian government has extended the monetary threshold of A$20,000 for the commencement by creditors of bankruptcy and liquidation proceedings ...

Leave to proceed against a bankrupt; but with questions about the legal representation

In an employee’s otherwise ordinary unpaid wages case the respondent employer went bankrupt mid- hearing and the employee’s legal representation ...

Important rules in reviewing registrars’ sequestration orders

Chief Justice James Allsop of the Federal Court of Australia has written, both in his judgments and extra-judicially,[1] of the ...

Boensch v Pascoe – High Court’s decision

The seven member bench of the High Court which heard Boensch v Pascoe on 11 October 2019 has unanimously dismissed ...

A trustee’s interest in a bankrupt’s interest in trust property – Boensch v Pascoe

A seven member bench of the High Court was convened for the hearing in Boensch v Pascoe on 11 October ...

Winding up a company for $2,000?

A court has suggested that the minimum debt amount for which a creditor can proceed to apply to wind up ...

Too poor to be made bankrupt?

Most bankruptcies pay nothing to unsecured creditors. But there are only limited circumstances where a debtor can resist bankruptcy by ...

Proportions of bankruptcies – a factor of 8.8 in Australia, but only 3.4 in England and Wales

While waiting to see if Australia’s parliament decides to introduce a one year period of bankruptcy, down from the current ...

Guardianship and bankruptcy – NSW law reform report misses the point?

A father who suffered a debilitating stroke left his son with the legal difficulty, in a quagmire of state and ...

Registration of a liquidator, on conditions – Mansfield

The AAT has confirmed that a corporate insolvency practitioner’s ‘exposure’ to bankruptcy as being one criterion required to be met ...

Bankrupt parliamentarians – ok or not?

At a time when the government has a Bill before Parliament to reduce the period of bankruptcy from three years ...

Release from bankruptcy of a deaf person

A deaf person, with some mental impairment, who was bankrupt was successful in having an objection to his discharge from ...

Some casual Friday comments on recent insolvency developments

This is a quick review of some on-going current issues in insolvency and related. Pending decisions The Commonwealth v Byrnes ...

What’s bankruptcy all about?

Would you get out of bed in the morning, as an unsecured creditor of a bankrupt, for a dividend return ...

The wider context of the proposed one-year period of bankruptcy

Many less than 1% of bankrupts warrant an objection to discharge from their bankruptcy, trustees leave it til the last ...

Moving in together – personal and corporate insolvency law and policy

Mr Christian Porter, as the new federal Attorney-General, might like to consider transferring responsibility for personal insolvency from his law ...