When faced with multiple class action threats, there is little downside in a company giving consideration to a creditors’ scheme of arrangement to achieve a quicker and cheaper resolution of the underlying claims.
We identify and explain four of the court’s key findings below:
1. “In all matters where execution is sought against a primary residence, the entire claim, including the monetary judgment, must be adjudicated at the same time”.
While much attention earlier this year was paid to the introduction of the safe harbour for directors, the second element in Australia's major reforms to insolvency laws ‒ the moratorium on the enforcement of ipso facto clauses (including self-executing clauses) ‒ is now in effect.
Some 25 years after Harmer promised a faster, more efficient and commercial approach for dealing with failed and failing companies, Australia's highest court has this morning confirmed that creditors can contractually bind a company and all stakeholders to a moratorium extension via a properly formed holding DOCA (Mighty River International Limited v Hughes [2018] HCA 38; Clayton Utz acted for the successful Deed Administrators of Mesa Minerals Limited).
Although we have been operating under the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth) (PPSA) for a number of years, this area of law continues to generate disputes because of the complexity of the legislative regime and the ramifications of being an unsecured creditor of an insolvent entity.
Changes to Singapore's statutory regime for schemes of arrangement, which came into effect in May 2017, are aimed at placing Singapore on the map as an international debt restructuring hub.
Debtor in possession financing in the US has continued to rise, particularly in the context of retail insolvencies. In Australia, we have seen a number of high profile retail collapses in recent years. Can DIP financing solve the woes of struggling retailers in Australia?
Section 37A can be used by future, contingent and prospective creditors to recover assets, meaning the transferor need not be indebted at the time of the transfer.
Recovering assets from a debtor is usually done via the recovery provisions in the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) or theBankruptcy Act 1966 (Cth), but there is another option, at least in New South Wales, which offers creditors, insolvency practitioners and any prejudiced parties a useful alternative. A recent case demonstrates its advantages (Lardis v Lakis [2018] NSWCA 113; Clayton Utz acted for the successful creditor).
This brief alert is a follow-up to our previous article published on 1 February 2017, on the SCA judgment and is aimed at reporting on the Constitutional Court judgment.
The Policy
Following on from our previous tax alerts regarding the various proposed amendments pursuant to the draft Taxation Laws Amendment Bill, 2018 (draft TLAB) published for public comment on 17 July 2018, we discuss in this Tax Alert another significant proposed legislative amendment, specifically related to the allowance for doubtful debts set out in s11(j) of the Income Tax Act, No 58 of 1962 (Act).