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Corporate Insolvency Services

At Bell Legal Group, our lawyers can advise you should you be seeking corporate insolvency and reconstruction advice or if you are facing corporate insolvency disputes.

Whether your corporate group is experiencing financial difficulty and is looking to restructure or whether a liquidator, receiver or administrator has been appointed to your company or is pursuing you for money, we can provide you with the most practical and economical advice to see you through these tough times.

Below is a summary of the three main forms of administration of an insolvent corporation.

Liquidation

Liquidation is the process whereby the affairs of the company ends, a liquidator is appointed to collect its assets and pay its liabilities so far as possible and then deregister the company. The terms “liquidation” and “winding up” are essentially interchangeable.

There are three types of winding up under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), namely:

(a) voluntary winding up, where the company itself makes the decision to wind up the company;

(b) winding up in insolvency, where a creditor will apply to the court to wind the insolvent company up; and

(c) court winding up other than for reasons of insolvency, usually where there are disputes between shareholders.

The court can also appoint a provisional liquidator in circumstances where a creditor of the company has a reason to believe the assets of a potential insolvent company may be dissipated.

Receivership

A receiver is someone appointed to protect the interests of the appointor in the company’s property and in the course of such protection to collect and receive debts. Receivers may be appointed on the basis of a security interest over the assets of the company, a mortgage over real property of the company or by an order of the court.

Some security interests (formally called charges) provide for the appointment of a receiver on the occurrence of specified events. This is the usual manner in which a receiver is appointed in respect of insolvency.

Administration

The Corporations Act provides for the appointment of an administrator with powers to take control of the company’s affairs while a moratorium on claims against the company comes into effect. The administrator may propose a deed of company arrangement between the company and its creditors under which the company has the opportunity of continuing with a view to again becoming profitable or gradually winding down to effectively liquidate all of its assets over time. Alternatively, the administrator may propose that the company enter liquidation, or return to the control of the directors.

Summary

Should you require advice on any of the following, please contact our solicitors at Bell Legal Group by calling us on 07 5597 3366 or send us an email to law@belllegal.com.au:

(a) liquidation/winding up;

(b) voluntary administration;

(c) receivership;

(d) deeds of company arrangement;

(e) voidable transaction claims;

(f) preference claims;

(g) public examinations;

(h) creditor’s statutory demands;

(i) restructuring advice;

(j) powers and duties of liquidators/receivers/administrators;

(k) proofs of debt

(l) director duties;

(m) director/shareholder disputes; and

(n) priorities and distributions in liquidation.