Studies and reports about important issues in law, finance and insolvency
Insolvency can be dodged with planning but there are actions to be taken even when it looms.
Transport companies need to get smart to survive. There is no room for sloppiness. Stress factors in the industry include low barriers to entry, significant financing costs, locked-in contracts, poor strategy and poor financial controls.
The Coronavirus economic meltdown has already led to some quick changes to Australian bankruptcy and insolvency law. However, as the basic tools for dealing with insolvency remain the same, it is worth looking at the general regulatory landscape and asking, what is the role of lawyers? And what should that role be?
White Paper for professional advisers of SMEs about pre-pack insolvency arrangements.
Date of update: July 2020
Australia’s prohibition on companies trading whilst insolvent (Corporations Act, s 588G) has often been the subject of crit- icism. Until recently, Australia was said to have the strictest insolvent trading prohibition in the developed world (Hon Martin CJ, opening address to the 16th National Conference of the Insolvency Practitioners’ Association of Australia, 28 May 2009).
The Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth) commenced on 30 January 2012 and with it revolutionised the validity, enforceability and priority of security interests in personal property. This whitepaper outlines the function of the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR), of which acts as a single “noticeboard” to the public of registered security interests in personal property.
In the age of the development and reliance on information technology (IT), the legal profession is undergoing a significant makeover in terms of the type and delivery of legal services. This whitepaper offers a perspective on the ways that lawyers attribute value to their work, the effect of IT on the legal profession and invites the reader to consider innovative ways of pricing legal services.
In a profession that favours the use of hourly billing, one of the challenges that faces entrepreneurs or a small-to-medium enterprise (SME) is the management of the legal spend of commercial litigation. This whitepaper offers insights to the best ways to reduce the legal costs of commercial litigation in the absence of a fixed fee retainer.
Which Mr Men character is your debtor? This whitepaper takes a light hearted look at the different types of debtors that Credit Managers and Financial Controllers may encounter in B2B debt recovery. The characterisation of debtors allows appropriate action to be taken to recover debts and write off debts that are unrecoverable.
The Personal Properties Securities Act 2009 (Cth) (PPSA) and commercial property leases to the untrained eye appear to be fundamentally separate areas of law in that the former deals with personal property and the latter land. However, there are instances where the law overlaps and the failure to register certain items, particular in an insolvency scenario, may lead to the loss of priority. This whitepaper examines when a commercial lease will equate to a “PPS Lease” and offer effective ways for entrepreneurs and Small to medium enterprises to protect personal property.
When a business hits rocky times the directors of small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) need to develop a clear business strategy to ensure they can achieve a desired outcome. This whitepaper examines the fundamental issues that directors of SMEs need to be aware of when a business finds itself in turbulent waters and how the formal appointment of an administrator or liquidator may be necessary if a business is insolvent.
Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) are an important part of the economy and contribute half of employment and over a third of economic activity. It is therefore in the interests of all parties to ensure the sustainability of SMEs. This whitepaper analyses the voluntary administration process and whether it fulfils its purpose to maximise the prospects of corporate rescue and, if salvage is not possible, to get a better return for creditors.
Offshore havens have recently captured our imagination through the Panama Papers leak. A trove of client data (2.6 terabytes of data containing 11.5 million records) from a Panamanian law firm was leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (‘ICIJ’).