Artemis Amalia Metaxa, Chrysostomides Advocates & Legal Consultants

This is an extract from the 2023 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.

This is an Insight article, written by a selected partner as part of GRR's co-published content. Read more on Insight

In summary

Current economic conditions and market instability are likely to see more Australian companies fall into distress in 2023 — creating both opportunities for proactive restructuring as well as distressed asset sales.

That's one of the predictions in this year's edition of From Red to Black, Clayton Utz's annual review of the dynamics of Australia's Restructuring and Insolvency (R&I) market.

Mark Fine, Aymen Mahmoud and Sunay Radia, McDermott Will & Emery

This is an extract from the 2023 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.

Luc Defferrard and Tervel Stoyanov, Walder Wyss Ltd

This is an extract from the 2023 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.

Alexandros Kontogeorgiou and Georgia Papathanasiou, Kontogeorgiou Bakopanou & Associates Law Firm

This is an extract from the 2023 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.

Matthew Czyzyk, Natalie Blanc, Natalie Raine and Emily Ma, Ropes & Gray

This is an extract from the 2023 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.

Céline Domenget Morin and Loris Julia, Goodwin Procter LLP

This is an extract from the 2023 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.

Welcome to the 2023 edition of "From Red to Black", our annual review of significant developments and topical issues in the Australian restructuring and insolvency market.

Restructuring and insolvency professionals are showing real ingenuity when restructuring insolvent businesses, and landlords need to keep up.

Economic downturns create opportunities for the restructuring or acquisition of challenged assets, and we anticipate increased activity in this space in 2023. The indicators pointing in that direction are:

An appeal “of considerable importance for company law” in the UK could affect Australian directors' duties.

In Australia, the existence of a duty to consider the interests of creditors principally arises in the context of the fiduciary duty of directors to act in the best interests of the company. That duty finds expression in section 181(1) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth): a director or other officer of a corporation must exercise their powers and discharge their duties in good faith in the best interests of the corporation and for a proper purpose.