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“Thousands and thousands of pounds have been lost …”
By way of an update to this post, on 11 June 2024 the Federal Court adjourned the 14 June case ...
Bankruptcy and mental ill health
Justice John Logan of the Federal Court has raised some interesting issues in an otherwise straightforward bankruptcy judgment concerning the ...
Small business sole trader insolvencies
A recent newspaper report on the trend of insolvencies in small business was interesting for the reason that it acknowledged ...
Insolvency practitioners as employees
Updated on 5 March 2024 to refer to a 1996 Explanatory Memorandum in bankruptcy which says that, despite the case law, ...
Insolvency Practitioner Registration and Disciplinary Committees
I am pleased to have been appointed by the government as a part‑time member to the Ministerial pool for the ...
Offence referrals by liquidators
Offence referrals to ASIC by liquidators continue to be contentious and perhaps distracted by the issue of claimed automated decision-making ...
Cancellation of a bankruptcy trustee’s registration and freezing orders obtained
The registration of Australian bankruptcy trustee Mr Paul Leroy was cancelled by the Inspector-General in Bankruptcy (IGB) on 2 February ...
New corporate definitions of director, officer and asset
Following the ALRC’s work on Ch 7 of the Corporations Act, attention has already been given to legislative changes tidying ...
The new Administrative Review Tribunal and law for the relief of insolvent debtors
On 7 December 2023, the government introduced legislation that would abolish the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and establish what it ...
A winding up vs an administration – s 440A(2)
The situation where a creditor applies for a winding up of a company under the Corporations Act, and while that ...
Insolvency statistics 2023
Each of our insolvency regulators, ASIC for corporate, AFSA for personal, has issued its statistics for 2022-2023 right on the ...
NOCLAR – accountants’ reporting of offences
Some while ago, I took an interest in the professional obligation that accountants decided to impose on themselves to respond ...
NZ insolvency practitioner sanctioned
A sanction of a New Zealand liquidator for the poor handling of his matters provides an illustration of New Zealand’s ...
Language please….!
“Finally on the subject of language, the Commission staff are not to be blamed for the archaic forms of syntax ...
“Shock horror – insolvent people don’t have many assets”
While we wait for the useful annual statistics from AFSA as to dividend returns in bankruptcies in 2022-2023,* an insolvency ...
Australia has some of the longest lag times between employees being paid and taxes being remitted
This is a short historical background to the increasing non- or late payment of tax mainly by small businesses – ...
Bankruptcy Act restructure – when statements of affairs are accepted
AFSA advises that the Bankruptcy Amendment (Discharge from Bankruptcy) Act 2023 (Cth), came into force on Thursday 23 November 2023. ...
Slow pace of litigation and incomprehensible laws
Former Federal Court judge Steven Rares is reported in the AFR[1] as having made several comments about the justice system ...
Insolvent trading in context
Insolvent trading is one of the many items for review recommended by the Parliamentary Joint Committee report on Corporate Insolvency. ...
The business structures of SMEs
A recent article in the Australian Business Law Review – Not in isolation: The Rationale for a Combination of Business ...
Regulation of firms offering insolvency services
Further to my earlier post on insolvency practitioner (IP) regulation in the UK, and contrary to expectations,[1] the UK government ...
‘Masculinity contest cultures’, and gender imbalance?
Evidence before the Parliamentary Joint Committee inquiry into Ethics and Professional Accountability [1] (PJC inquiry) may assist in considering the ...
Some insolvency law reform ideas from Scotland and New Zealand
“ … the state is, effectively, paying insolvency practitioners to end the life of small companies … a sub-optimal solution ...
The cross-border regulation of insolvency practitioners – insights from INSOL Tokyo
I was invited to present at the INSOL International Academic Colloquium on 12 September 2023 in Tokyo on the panel ...
