independence
The need for a new process for the appointment of insolvency practitioners?
A Judge has expressed concern about the processes for the appointment of insolvency practitioners, suggesting adverse relationships with their lawyers, ...
Voluntary administrators removed as NZ interim liquidators of debtor on independence grounds
Following the appointment by the New Zealand High Court of Australian voluntary administrators of Probis as New Zealand interim liquidators ...
ASIC v Jones [GD Pork] – insolvency practitioner independence and pre-insolvency advice
A court decision concerning insolvency practitioner independence and pre-insolvency advice usefully raises issues recommended for law reform review by the ...
Insolvency practitioner independence – how commercial is the fair-minded observer?
A pending WA appeal decision may address the issue of the extent to which commercial considerations surrounding the appointment of ...
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 ...
Judicial Impartiality and the Law on Bias
The Australian Law Reform Commission’s 600 page report on judicial impartiality – Without Fear or Favour: Judicial Impartiality and the ...
Judicial Impartiality Final Report – still under wraps
The Australian Law Reform Commission handed its Judicial Impartiality Final Report to the Attorney-General, Senator Michaelia Cash on 6 December ...
High Court confirms principles of judicial independence
The High Court of Australia has found that social communications between a judge and a lawyer for a litigant in ...
Apprehensions of the fair-minded lay observer – a law reform review of judicial impartiality
The Australian Law Reform Commission has been asked to undertake a review of the laws relating to impartiality and bias ...
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 ...
Too much independence? a re-issue of my 2016 commentary
My analysis below of the law of insolvency practitioner independence, written in October 2016, is reissued in February 2020 in ...
Some views on ASIC v Wily & Hurst
The views of Justice Brereton of the NSW Supreme Court have not prevailed following the decision by the High Court ...
‘Your place or mine, and for how long?’ – a lack of judicial independence
We might have noticed that courts in Australia and indeed in most comparable countries are usually housed in their own ...
Questions of advantage and efficiency in assessing insolvency practitioner independence
In a further indication of the changing views of the judiciary in relation to the need for the independence of ...
Insolvency practitioner independence – a ‘fair-minded’ or ‘uncharitably-minded’ assessment
The most recent decision on insolvency practitioner independence confirms an ongoing trend of treating the fair-minded observer, whose view is ...
A case of ‘just in case’ – Network Ten
The concept of “potential” or “putative” insolvency administrators who have had “recent, long-term, substantial and remunerative involvement” with the company ...
Is “outrageous” too strong a term to describe some of our new insolvency laws?
The question as to what parts of the Insolvency Law Reform Act 2016 have commenced may be unclear to some but ...
“Two issues of importance in insolvency practice” – holding DOCAs upheld; pre-appointment conflict claim rejected
What the WA Supreme Court described as the two issues of importance in insolvency practice were whether holding DOCAs (deeds of ...
New Zealand Voluntary Administration Law – an independence challenge to the administrators
“Pre-appointment work, including involvement in the drafting of a proposed deed of company arrangement, is not unusual in the corporate ...
