Whether you are a John Donne, Ernest Hemingway or Metallica fan, the above clause rings a bell. Last week the Court of Appeal for Western Australia joined those “Riding the Lighting” and provided its own musings on “For Whom the Bells Tolls” down under. Rather than affirming that the bell tolls for the infamous Spanish guerrilla fighters or a tortured metaphysical poet, the Australian court provided a new answer: The Bell [decision] tolls for “would be” secured lenders.

Key Points: The High Court held there was no variation in the terms of the Charge and therefore no registration was required.

On 1 September 2010 the High Court handed down its much anticipated decision in the appeal from the Queensland Court of Appeal in Re Octaviar Ltd (No 7) [2009] QCA 282, unanimously dismissing the appeal in Public Trustee of Queensland v Fortress Credit Corporation (Aus) 11 Pty Ltd [2010] HCA 29.

The fixed and floating charge

The High Court’s recent decision in Bofinger v Kingsway involves the law respecting sureties, their obligation to indemnify the creditor and right to indemnity by the principal debtor, and the operation of the doctrine of equity associated with the term “subrogation”.

This week’s TGIF considers the most recent decision in a line of cases which hold that the provisions of the Code of Banking Practice may be incorporated into loan agreements, as well as guarantees given by individuals.

BACKGROUND

WHAT HAPPENED?

Rahan Constructions Pty Ltd (Rahan) was contracted to undertake commercial construction and other works in about April 2012.  On or about this date, Rahan entered into a credit account with Asset Flooring Pty Ltd (Asset Flooring).  Rahan’s obligations under this credit account were personally guaranteed by the respondent, Mr North.

On 30 July 2013, Rahan was wound up by order of the court and Asset Flooring sought to enforce the guarantee for the outstanding balance owing under the credit account.

There is a plethora of Australian legislation which sheets home personal liability to directors and officers.

Below are some reminders of traps for directors and officers for transactions that might be undertaken in the usual course of a director or officer’s normal arrangements.

Trap 1: Super re-contribution

Some advisors propose, as a strategy for limiting superannuation death benefits tax, withdrawing superannuation balances and re-contributing that amount into super as a non-concessional tax-free contribution.

Introduction

The eurozone crisis and the fallout taking place in Greece are keeping Europe on edge. An increasing number of analysts anticipate a new recession. Perhaps you, too, are wondering how the situation will affect your business, especially your international contracts. Below is a short outline of potential issues that we think are relevant. We have approached these issues from the perspective of doing business, or planning to do business, with foreign parties that run a higher than average risk of being "hit" by the current economic situation.

Potential issues

Summary

In one of the most eagerly awaited appeals to affect the restructuring and insolvency community since MyTravel, the Court of Appeal in the European Directories case ruled on Friday 22 October that:

Introduction

In July 2006, after a long and unsuccessful attempt to reach an out-of-court restructuring of the indebtedness of the Eurotunnel group of companies, the managers of the Eurotunnel group requested the opening of main insolvency proceedings for all the companies in France.