We are seeing attempts by the Chinese Government to provide the market with more sophisticated tools for dealing with unprofitable companies.

China is attempting to align its insolvency regime to international standards and introduce additional tools for dealing with the country's rising debt load.

Australian lenders with exposures to these debts (particularly in the coal, steel, manufacturing, cement, shipbuilding, solar, heavy machinery, mining and property sectors) should reassess insolvency risk and understand their options.

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Although they should always keep time-frames very much in mind, the decision in BKA Practice Co Pty Ltd gives liquidators greater scope to find all possible time-frames in which they have to work.

Key Points:

A DOCA can extinguish claims under a guarantee, even where those claims arise following the DOCA's termination.

If the underlying debt has already been extinguished by a DOCA, can a secured creditor still enforce the charge? A recent case explored the role of section 444D(2) of the Corporations Act in this situation, with implications for parties seeking to rely on guarantees from companies that have been through a DOCA (Australian Gypsum Industries Pty Ltd v Dalesun Holdings Pty Ltd [2015] WASCA 95).

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A Senate Committee has said amendments to Australia's corporate insolvency laws should be considered to encourage and facilitate corporate turnarounds.

The Senate Economics References Committee called for a review of Australia's corporate insolvency laws to ensure they facilitate corporate turnarounds. One suggestion was for the implementation of certain features of the US' Chapter 11 regime into Australia's insolvency laws.

The arguments for changing the insolvency regime

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The NSW Supreme Court says it can provide directions on an administrator's commercial decision on the basis of the liability assumed by administrators and their partners.

Key Points:

For a company to be entitled to subrogation under section 560, it must ensure that it meets the strict requirements of section 560 and does not pay entitlements directly to the relevant company's employees.

Six month extensions to convening periods should not be seen as a fait accompli, particularly if the administrator's application is opposed.

There is a commonly held belief that courts will readily grant an administrator's application for an extension to the convening period. This might have been true once, but it is fast turning into an urban myth, judging by two recent decisions in the Federal Court.

Justice Jacobson's unwillingness to depart from the interests of the majority in relation to Nine Entertainment should give parties confidence that Schemes remain an effective way to effect debt for equity swaps or similar transactions.

Courts are willing, in certain circumstances, to consider the commercial realities of voluntary administrations, and can be flexible.

Liquidators need to be mindful that a disclaimer of property may be challenged. The Supreme Court of Victoria underscored a key issue in establishing "prejudice" to creditors in a liquidation, holding that a disclaimer of property may be set aside where the liquidators are indemnified.