In handing over any documents in litigation or Court process, you must assess whether or not the documents have tax relevance.

The Court will closely examine the relevant transactions involving the accounts and form a view – which may be an impressionistic one – as to the likely extent of the interest of each client (or each client group) in those accounts.

The updates to the Guidance Note provide useful guidance on disclosure requirements in the context of the safe harbour reforms but ultimately, the status quo continues.

The ASX has updated its continuous disclosure guidance for entities in financial distress to address uncertainty following the recent introduction of the insolvent trading safe harbour provisions into the Corporations Act. While the ASX has provided useful guidance, unsurprisingly, the position has not changed and directors must continually assess compliance with continuous disclosure requirements.

Following a landmark decision in the Full Federal Court, employees will retain their priority to payment of their entitlements in a company liquidation, even where the company is a corporate trustee of a trust.

The liquidators were not bound to cause Linc to comply with the EPO from the date of the disclaimer.

Back in October 2017, the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims (“PAP”) was launched to very little fanfare. PAP is part of the Civil Procedure Rules which govern how parties deal with litigation claims through the County Court and is the first time that strict rules have been put in place for pre-action conduct on a debt matter. I wrote an article about PAP at the time to explain the ins and outs of it.

Much has already been said about the demise of Carillion and the impact of its liquidation on the various parties with whom it contracted. In this article, I would like to examine what light the demise of Carillion throws on themes commonly encountered within insolvency and whether there are lessons to be learned for everyone.

Having read the various reports in the press, it is clear that whilst Carillion entered into multi-billion pound government contracts, the contracts had extremely small profit margins, ultimately rendering the business unsustainable.

As deleveraging to control transactions continue to be part of the legal landscape in Australia, we anticipate seeing further examples, particularly where the distressed company is a listed entity. 

With the enactment of the ipso factoreform in September this year (which commences operation on 1 July 2018), it is the genuine hope of many insolvency practitioners and others in the market that voluntary administration will become a less value-destructive and, therefore, a more useful tool for company restructures.

The Boart Longyear decisions confirm that class constitution remains a critical issue for review when pursuing creditors' schemes of arrangement.

The New South Wales Court of Appeal has recently confirmed the circumstances in which companies seeking approval of schemes of arrangement will be required to convene separate meetings for different classes of creditors.

Class constitution: key principles