Insolvency and restructuring

Personal and corporate insolvency is a natural part of the business cycle. Business owners need expert advice to navigate financial distress. Insolvency and restructuring practitioners need reliable advice to maximise the prospect of business recovery and returns to creditors of distressed companies. We are your go-to.

There are a variety of tools and options, which can be used by insolvency practitioners and business people alike, to achieve practical and commercial outcomes. We have the expertise and resources to assist.

We have experience supporting corporate and private clients through times of distress, from managing insolvencies to restructuring and turnaround. Creditors and insolvency practitioners (whether administrators, liquidators or trustees in bankruptcy) also rely on our advice in relation to debt recovery, security enforcement and all aspects of insolvency administration.

• For companies and business owners
  • Safe harbour strategies
  • Directors’ duties
  • Solvency advice
  • Risk minimisation
  • Debt restructuring and payment plans
  • Recovery of debts and realisation of security
• For restructuring, insolvency and turnaround practitioners
  • Restructuring and turnaround strategies
  • Deeds of company arrangement
  • Receiverships
  • Security enforcement, including advising in relation to the Personal Property Securities Act
  • Debt recovery
  • Investigations of insolvent entities
  • Dispute resolution and litigation

• We successfully negotiated repayment plans with the Commissioner of Taxation for clients in the building and construction and real estate industries, in relation to unpaid income tax withholding, GST and superannuation guarantee liabilities enabling the clients to avoid winding up and for their businesses to continue to trade.
• We acted for the liquidators of an insolvent company in the wine industry in advising about the validity of security registrations and enabling substantial recovery of funds through challenges to unregistered and incorrectly registered security interests.
• We advised the liquidator of a farming entity in relation to his adjudication on proofs of debt and in negotiating a global resolution of creditor and shareholder claims to enable the company to be returned to the control of its directors.
• We acted in a multi-jurisdictional international insolvency administration including US chapter 11 bankruptcy of a substantial food processing and distribution business, which involved public examinations in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, challenges to adjudications on proofs of debt, applications for directions on various matters and assessment of shareholder claims.

• We acted for the liquidators of an insolvent agribusiness in pursuing voidable transactions and an insolvent trading claim against the former directors and officers, resulting in substantial monetary recoveries that enabled the payment of a significant dividend to unsecured creditors.