When a company becomes financially distressed, directors are often required to act quickly and decisively. However, directors may at the same time find themselves held back by the requirements of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the “Corporations Act”) or their company constitution.
What is now known as the ‘ipso facto regime’ was introduced by the Treasury Laws Amendment (2017 Enterprise Incentives No. 2) Act 2017 in September 2017, which inserted a number of provisions that provided for a stay on the exercise of certain ipso facto contractual rights in the context of corporate restructuring and insolvency procedures.
What is an ipso facto clause?
Corporate Australia is bracing for the long-awaited surge in insolvencies. As Australia’s largest creditor and, according to creditor reporting bureau Creditor Watch, responsible for the greatest number of company windups prior to the pandemic in 2019, the ATO can fairly be described as an influential, if not dominant, player in the restructuring and turnaround space and in corporate Australia more broadly.
The ATO effect
Contents:
Overview of corporate insolvency in Australia
On 28 September 2022, the Federal Government, through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services (the Committee) commenced an inquiry into the effectiveness of Australia’s corporate insolvency laws in protecting and maximising value for the benefit of all interested parties and the economy.
This article was first published by the Financier World Wide.
Largely due to the worldwide economic turmoil caused by the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, recent years have seen global business disruption on a grand scale – a scorched corporate landscape ripe for distressed mergers and acquisitions (M&A) practitioners to pick over.
Trends in traditional M&A activity
This 2022 review provides an overview of recent Australian Restructuring and Insolvency activity along with the laws, their application and recent trends and development in restructuring and insolvency activity.
Chapters:
After reporting its lowest annual recovery from False Claim Act (“FCA”) cases in Fiscal Year (FY) 2020, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has reportedly bounced back. On February 1, 2021, DOJ released detailed statistics regarding FCA recoveries during FY 2021, during which DOJ reportedly obtained more than $5.6 billion in civil FCA settlements and judgments, of which $5 billion related to matters involving the health care industry.
Derivatives specialist Louise McCoach has authored the 2021 Australia chapter of the ‘International Comparative Legal Guide - Derivatives 2021’, which summarises the laws and regulations of derivatives in Australia. The chapter covers documentation and formalities, credit support, regulatory issues, insolvency/bankruptcy, close-out netting, taxation and bespoke jurisdictional matters and market trends in the Australian derivates market.
On December 14, 2020, Judge Marvin Isgur of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, issued an important decision in the CEC Entertainment, Inc. (Chuck E. Cheese) bankruptcy case, Case No. 20-33163, denying the Debtors’ motion to abate their obligations to pay post-petition rent due to government shutdown orders issued as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Memorandum Opinion [Dkt. No. 1492].