The sole shareholder of several closely held corporate entities engages in a fraudulent transfer by extinguishing one entity’s right to payment from a third party in exchange for the release of liabilities owed by other entities to that same third party. In Motorworld, Inc. v. William Benkendorf, et al., __ N.J. __ (Mar. 30, 2017), the New Jersey Supreme Court voided such a transfer against a Chapter 7 debtor corporation whose sole asset was a $600,000 loan receivable purportedly cancelled by the release.

The New South Wales Supreme Court has found that a secured party cannot rely on its own mistake when registering on the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) to claim that the defective registration “temporarily perfects” its security interest.

The facts

The Supreme Court of Queensland has delivered a significant judgement concerning the obligations of liquidators to cause an insolvent company to incur the costs of complying with State environmental laws, in priority to other unsecured creditors.

On instructions from the liquidators of Linc (Stephen Longley, Grant Sparks and Martin Ford of PPB Advisory) JWS made an application for directions in respect of both the liquidators’ and Linc’s environmental obligations in Queensland.

Section 433 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the Act) concerns the payment to employees as priority creditors by a receiver from the assets subject to a circulating security interest. The provision in large part mirrors the payment waterfall contained in section 556 that applies in a winding-up.

There are a number of reasons why liquidators might want to slow things down when it comes to commencing or prosecuting proceedings. A liquidator might want more time to fully investigate certain claims or secure appropriate funding before incurring substantial costs or adverse costs exposure. While there are options available to liquidators looking to delay either the commencement or service of a particular proceeding, each comes with its own risks.

The Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated ruling in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., 580 U.S. ___ (2017)1 on March 21, reversing the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ affirmance of an order approving the distribution of the proceeds of settlement of bankruptcy estate causes of action to general unsecured creditors via structured dismissal, with no distribution to holders of priority wage claims.

The Court framed the question presented, and its ruling, very narrowly—twice. First:

The Federal Government has released the Exposure Draft for the much anticipated introduction of:

The High Court of Australia recently dismissed an application brought by former Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd (QN) directors Mr Clive Palmer and Mr Ian Ferguson for a declaration that section 596A of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) is constitutionally invalid.

As you may recall, in 2013 ASIC wrote to all liquidators to announce the commencement of an industry-wide project to test all registered liquidators’ compliance with the requirement to publish certain notices on ASIC’s “published notices website” and to lodge forms with ASIC. ASIC refers to this initiative as the “PNW Project”.

A spate of recent decisions approving liquidators’ remuneration on an ad valorembasis had caused some trepidation amongst insolvency practitioners facing the prospect of court fee approval.