Treasury has released draft regulations and a draft declaration for public consultation. The regulations and declaration support the stay on enforcement of ipso facto clauses against relevant entities. Ipso facto clauses allow parties to enforce a right, and terminate or amend a contract, when their contractual counterparties have entered into formal insolvency, regardless of the counterparties continued performance of their obligations under the contract.

This week’s TGIF considers the case of In the matter of Specialist Australian Security Group Pty Ltd (in liq) [2018] VSC 199 in which the Court considered the priority of administrators' right to an indemnity out of company property.

Background

Following the implementation of the Safe Harbor protections introduced last September, new changes to the Corporations Act 2001 come into force on 1 July 2018, significantly limiting the ability of parties to rely on insolvency as a means to terminate a contract. These changes intend to help facilitate the restructure and turnaround of struggling companies and are being hailed by insolvency practitioners as a long overdue softening of existing insolvency laws.

An important part of last year's package of amendments to the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) were the ipso facto reforms which will stay the exercise of certain contractual rights relating to a counterparty's insolvency or financial position. What, if any, contracts would be exempt from the stay has been a major question, not least for the construction industry.

This has now been answered, with the release of exposure drafts for public comment by May 11 2018 of the:

In the recent case of Cash Generator Limited v Fortune and others [2018] EWHC 674 (Ch), the Court determined that non-compliance with the deemed consent procedure for nominating liquidators did not invalidate their appointment. The case provides a useful summary on the relatively new provisions governing the deemed consent procedure and welcome relief to Insolvency Practitioners (“IPs”) that a failure to fully comply with such provisions will not necessarily invalidate their appointment.

Brief facts and arguments

Stakeholders have until 11 May 2018 to comment on a key part of the new ipso facto regime – the exceptions to the statutory stay on ipso facto clauses in certain categories of contracts and rights.

The new insolvency legislation commencing 1 July 2018 (Treasury Laws Amendment (2017 Enterprise Incentives No. 2) Act 2017) introduces a statutory stay on the exercise of contractual rights arising by reason of certain insolvency trigger events.

The Corporations Act 2001 sets out a regime for the order in which certain debts and claims are to be paid in priority to unsecured creditors.

That's straightforward enough for a liquidator, right?

Unfortunately, matters are not that straightforward. In effect, there are two priority regimes under the Act for the preferential payments of particular creditors, each of which applies to a different "fund", and we've observed this has led to some liquidators being unsure of how to proceed – or even worse, using funds they should not.

The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (“the Act”) came into force on 25 June 2020 making sweeping changes to the current insolvency legislative framework. This article will focus on Section 14 of the Act and its effect on suppliers of insolvent companies. These provisions had been in consideration for some time before the pandemic. They are permanent provisions unlike some other provisions in the Act which appear to have been brought in on a temporary basis as part of the government’s support package for businesses.

The effect of Section 14

The European Preventive Restructuring Framework offers different ways to help companies impacted by COVID-19. Here’s what you need to know.

In brief

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to four groups of companies emerging, each with different needs for restructuring. The new European framework may prove helpful for those companies who cannot currently cover debts, but who don’t have an acute liquidity problem. Financial restructuring may be the best option to allow companies with valid business models to return to profitability.

The Australian government has taken swift action to enact new legislation that significantly changes the insolvency laws relevant to all business as a result of the ongoing developments related to COVID-19