A recent Victorian case has worrying implications for financiers and creditors.
A decision of the Victorian Court of Appeal in Vasudevan v Becon Constructions (Australia) Pty Ltd [2014] VSCA 14 has the potential to significantly broaden the power of a liquidator to attack a company transaction under section 588FDA of the Corporations Act 2001 (Act) where there are ‘indirect benefits’ to a director or close associate of a director of the company.
On 29 May 2014, the Moldovan Parliament passed the Act No. 90/2014 on amending and supplementing of certain legislative acts (Act No. 90). Act No.90, which entered into force on 27 June 2014, implements simplified rules on the liquidation of companies in Moldova (in particular, at the decision of their shareholders), namely by inter alia amending the Civil Code of Moldova, Act No. 845/1992 on Entrepreneurship and Enterprises, Act No. 220/2007 on State Registration of Companies and Individual Entrepreneurs.
Obtain advice before you lodge a proof of debt or vote in a liquidation
Secured creditors should remember that submitting a proof of debt and voting in a liquidation may result in the loss of their security if they get it wrong.
The Supreme Court of New South Wales has delivered a timely reminder to secured creditors of a company in liquidation, where the secured creditor lost its security because it submitted a proof of debt for the full amount of its debt and voted on a poll at a creditor’s meeting for its full debt.
Liquidators are commonly appointed to a company where, prior to liquidation the company was a trustee of a trust. Often when the liquidators are appointed, the company has ceased to be the trustee and a replacement trustee has not been appointed.
In these circumstances, the company in liquidation is a bare trustee in relation to the trust assets and the liquidator will assume this role until a replacement trustee is appointed. Often a replacement trustee is not appointed.
Does the liquidator as bare trustee have a power to sell trust assets?
Secured creditors should not allow a liquidator to sell a secured asset without first:
Many questions arise when a contractual partner enters into insolvency. One question is what happens with the debtor's ongoing contracts when the insolvency starts? Are they maintained or terminated?
One of the main principles governing insolvency proceedings states that the debtor's reorganisation should be sought before bankruptcy. To this end, the Romanian Insolvency Law (RIL) provides a series articles supporting the debtor's potential reorganisation.
If your terms of trade documents don’t have the correct provisions, you can lose goods supplied to a customer that becomes insolvent, even though you may have title to the goods.
A recent Supreme Court decision highlights the need for retention of title suppliers to have adequate terms of trade documents and to register security interests on the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) to avoid losing assets if a customer becomes insolvent.
In its decision of 11 July 2013, Reference No. 21 ICdo 21/2012, the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic comprehensively expressed its opinion on the substantive legal aspects of re-pledging a receivable burdened by a lien and the possibility of negotiating a contractual waiver of re-pledging receivables. According to the decision, the pledging of a receivable does not preclude the possibility of establishing another lien on the same receivable. This decision is crucial for pledgees, typically financing banks.
Case background