C.A. No. 4499-VCL (Del. Ch. Apr. 27, 2009) (Lamb, V.C.) (Letter opinion).
General corporate
ASIC reports on corporate insolvencies 2012–2013
The dialogue is changing yet is the law enabling the practical change Directors need?
Achieving significant cultural shift in any business environment is no easy task, so it’s by no means ground-breaking to declare that after 1 year in operation, it still cannot be said that the new “Safe Harbour” legislation has resulted in a cultural change among directors.
On 5 October 2011 Justice Barrett of the Supreme Court of NSW handed down a decision in Centro Retail Limited and Centro MCS Manager Limited in its capacity as Responsible Entity of the Centro Retail Trust [2011] NSWSC 1175 (“Centro”) where he found that the responsible entity of Centro Retail Trust would be justified in modifying the constitution of the trust without unitholder approval to a insert a provision permitting the issue of units at a price different to that provided for by the pre-existing provisions.
Australia has now entered its first recession in 29 years, and the Australian Government has implemented a number of legislative reforms and other initiatives to support and provide temporary relief to businesses, including stimulus payments, enhanced asset write-off and flexibility in the application of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).
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.
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.
On 22 May 2020, Justice Black of the Supreme Court of NSW issued judgment In the matter of Wollongong Coal Limited and In the matter of Jindal Steel & Power (Australia) Pty Ltd [2020] NSWSC 614. The judgment sets out his Honour’s reasoning for granting the orders sought in a largely unprecedented application to effectively ‘re-enliven’ two schemes of arrangement which automatically terminated prior to being completed.
This week’s TGIF considers a recent application to the Queensland Supreme Court for judicial advice as to whether certain proofs of debt should be rejected due to the rule against double proofs.
Background
In September 2017, the Commonwealth Parliament passed the Treasury Laws Amendment (2017 Enterprise Incentives No. 2) Act 2017 (Cth) to amend and reform the insolvency and external administration provisions of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).
One of the main changes implemented by these reforms was the introduction of a ‘safe harbour’ protection for company directors.