On 28 March 2017, the Turnbull Government released draft legislation which would implement wide-ranging reforms to Australia’s corporate restructuring laws. The draft legislation focuses on reforms to the insolvent trading prohibition (Safe Harbour) and introducing a new stay on enforcing “ipso facto” clauses during certain restructuring procedures (Ipso Facto).

It's time to make offshore operations great again

In an opinion with serious implications for the treatment of overriding royalty interests ("ORRIs"), a Southern District of Texas Bankruptcy Court ruled that under Louisiana law, an ORRI could be recharacterized as debt rather than a royalty interest, even if the conveyance was facially consistent with an ORRI. An ORRI that is treated as debt would likely have a much lower priority for payment in bankruptcy than an ORRI treated as a royalty interest.

In a decision handed down earlier today, in Willmott Growers Group Inc v Willmott Forests Limited (Receivers and Managers appointed) (in liquidation) [2013] HCA 51,  the majority of the High Court upheld the Victorian Court of Appeal’s conclusion that the liquidators of an insolvent landlord can disclaim a lease, thereby extinguishing the tenant’s leasehold interest.

Oil and gas producers in Texas and a handful of other states have had the comfort of believing that they held purchase money security interests against the production in the hands of first purchasers and proceeds of that production. Now, the law supporting that belief has come under fire.