The recent decision of the Supreme Court of Western Australia in Mighty River International Ltd v Hughes & Bredenkamp [2017] WASC 69 (Mighty River v Hughes) has confirmed the legality and the utility of ‘holding’ deeds of company arrangement (colloquially referred to as ‘Holding DOCAs’).

Hold what?

The Supreme Court of New South Wales recently considered section 420A of the Corporations Act2001 (Cth) (the Act) in the context of a Receiver selling secured property without first advertising and offering the property for sale by auction.

Justice Black in In the matter of Boart Longyear Limited[2017] NSWSC 537 has confirmed that section 411(16) of the Corporations Act 2011 (Cth) (the Act), can be used to provide companies proposing schemes of arrangement with appropriate protections from its creditors in a form that can be recognised under Chapter 15 of the US Bankruptcy Code.

The Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth) (PPSA) applies to security interests in personal property including, but not limited to:

As Insurers underwriting risks in Spain are aware, the recent financial crisis resulted in a significant increase in claims against directors by trustees appointed when a company enters into an insolvency process. Insolvency proceedings in Spain reach a determination as to the culpability of directors implicated in the company's demise. In this context, the Spanish courts will look at whether the directors were "guilty" or whether the insolvency was "fortuitous". However, not all determinations will express whether the director's conduct was in bad faith or wilful.

The Insolvency Rules 2016 came into force on 6 April 2017 and seek to modernise the insolvency process. These changes were, in part, brought about by the changes to insolvency law and practice as a result of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 ("the Act"). Now is therefore a good time to take stock of the other key changes brought about by the Act that were anticipated to impact on D&O claims.

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.