The Bankruptcy governing Body (“ITSA”) has recently advised that there will be a change to the Debtor’s Petition Form and associated instructions.  The change will be that while making a petition with ITSA, the Debtor will be required to furnish details and evidence to support their identification prior to signing the Petition.  The documents are the same as required by financial institutions and the like such as Driver’s Licence, Pa [ More ]

The Federal Court of Australia has recently handed down a decision in the matter of Kassem and Secatore v Commissioner of Taxation [2012] FCA 152 to allow the recovery of unfair preference payments under Section 588FA of the Corporations Act (“Act”), by insolvency practitioners from the Australian Taxation Office (“ATO”).

It comes as no surprise to many that the largest recipient of unfair preference payments in Austral [ More ]

It has been decided that it is an abuse of the Voluntary Administration Process when an Administrator is appointed just before a Winding up Application is to be heard and the Administrator is not able to convince the Court that the administration would be in the Creditors’ best interest. It is not adequate that a Proposal for a Deed of Company Arrangement would satisfy the Court to terminate the Winding up Application for the mere reason tha [ More ]

(Source: http://www.scamwatch.gov.au)

Before the introduction of the internet, small business was usually confined to a local customer base. The internet has changed this forever. Now the sole trader who sells items as a hobby from their home has worldwide customer base. Unfortunately [ More ]

Over a year ago, the Federal Court of Australia handed down a decision in favour of Mars Australia Pty Ltd (“Mars”) in regard to their application to register a single colour as the business’ trademark.

In November 2002, Mars, the owner of a cat food brand “Whiskas”, applied to register a colour it developed, referred to as the “Whiskas Purple”, as a trademark for its cat food packaging. The application was accepted for r [ More ]

With ASIC’s renewed focus in the area of Liquidator compliance; ASIC is continuing to undertake a number of projects to assess Liquidator compliance with their legal obligations and to assist them to improve overall industry performance. Amongst various projects undertaken by ASIC, this article will discuss the Liquidator Surveillance Project.

ASIC is engaging in this project to attempt to raise industry standards, and to seek to pro [ More ]