What is a Deed of Company Arrangement?

A Deed of Company Arrangement (DOCA) is a formal framework for a company in voluntary administration to restructure its affairs, repay its debts, and potentially continue operations, offering an alternative to immediate liquidation.

What is the purpose of a Deed of Company Arrangement?

The purpose of a DOCA is to:

The evidence before the court established that:

The Federal Government has announced its intention to amend the Fair Work Act 2009 (FW Act) in response to the three-member panel's review of the FW Act in August this year, which we analysed in our earlier article.

Section 254 of the ITAA imposes obligations on agents and trustees concerning income, profit or gains of a capital nature.

Application of the section extends to liquidators, receivers and administrators by virtue of the extended definition given to the term "trustee" in section 6(1) of the ITAA.

Section 254 provides that agents and trustees are:

In Saraceni v Mentha [No.2] [2012] WASC 336 a director sought to challenge the appointment of receivers to Westgem Investments Pty Ltd ("Westgem") under a fixed and floating charge ("the Charge").  In 2008 Westgem entered into a Facility Agreement with financiers and executed the Charge, which charged the "secured property".

The plaintiff contended that:

We recently released an e-alert on the law reforms on directors’ derivative liability. Although not directly part of the derivative liability reforms, the close of 2011 and the first half of 2012 has seen a variety of exposure drafts, submissions, and parliamentary jostling over another key area of directors’ liability – the Federal Government’s law reforms to counter phoenix activities.

It is well established that if a trustee company goes into liquidation then:

Although section 443A(1) of the Corporations Act ("the Act") provides that Administrators are liable for the debts they incur in the performance of their functions as Administrators, a recent Western Australian judgment discusses how orders under section 447A of the Act can limit that liability.

In that case the Administrators needed funds to pay operating costs and wages, in order to maintain the business for sale as a going concern and/or to give the Administrators time to investigate alternative restructuring options.