On 7 November 2014, the Government released the draft Insolvency Law Reform Bill 2014, with key changes proposed to be put in place by 30 June 2015.
Introduction
On 4 September 2014, the Government introduced the Fair Entitlements Guarantee Amendment Bill 2014 to the House of Representatives (Bill). The Bill is intended to amend the Fair Entitlements Guarantee Act 2012 (Cth) so as to limit the entitlements payable by the Government to those employees made redundant due to the liquidation or bankruptcy of their employer.
Supreme Court of the Netherlands 11 July 2014 (ABN AMRO vs Berzona)
The Belgian Company Code provides for the possibility to dissolve and liquidate a Belgian company in a single step (en un seul acte/in één akte) (for more information, please see the June 2012 edition of this newsletter).
The Act of 25 April 2014 amending the Company Code with regard to liquidation procedure (the "Act") was published in the Belgian State Gazette on 14 May 2014 and entered into force on 24 May 2014. The Act amends one of the main requirements to proceed with dissolution and liquidation in a single step.
The recent decision of Australian Building Systems Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation [2014] FCA 116 involves a significant development in the taxation collection obligations of liquidators involved in winding up a company.
In this Alert, Special Counsel Justin Byrne and Solicitor Rachael Nyst discuss the implications of the case in regard to the need to retain an amount from sale proceeds of a property in order to meet capital gains tax (CGT) liabilities.
Key points
On 1 August 2013, an act amending the Business Continuity Act ("BCA") of 31 January 2009 entered into force.
The new act tackles the most common types of abuse under the Business Continuity Act and aims to reduce the number of bankruptcies following reorganisation governed by the BCA. The basic principles of the Business Continuity Act remain unchanged, however.
In a ground-breaking decision, the Dutch Supreme Court recently found that a foreign bankruptcy trustee may in principle exercise the powers conferred on him under the lex concursus (the law governing the bankruptcy) in the Netherlands as well. Such powers can include the management and disposal of assets located in the Netherlands at the time of the foreign bankruptcy order.
There has recently been a number of successful pre-pack restructurings in the Netherlands. A 'pre-pack' is the term used for the restructuring of a company through a transaction that is prepared as much as possible outside formal insolvency proceedings, and whereby the enterprise survives, but some or all of the company's debt is restructured. The aim of preparing the transaction in advance is to ensure maximum preservation of value. Several structures can be distinguished.