Changes to insol­ven­cy notices pub­li­ca­tion requirements

In Brief

The Aus­tralian Secu­ri­ties and Invest­ments Com­mis­sion (ASIC) has announced that changes to the way most cor­po­rate insol­ven­cy notices need to be pub­lished, will come into effect on 1 July 2012.

The changes will mean that under the Cor­po­ra­tions Act 2001 (Cth) most insol­ven­cy notices will need to be pub­lished on a new web­site run by ASIC, rather than in the print media. It should how­ev­er be not­ed in rela­tion to notices of wind­ing up appli­ca­tions, that the require­ment under Fed­er­al and Supreme Court Rules for print media pub­li­ca­tion of such notices will con­tin­ue to apply, unless the court exer­cis­es its dis­cre­tion to dis­pense with the print media pub­li­ca­tion requirement.

The changes will be brought about by the Cor­po­ra­tions Amend­ment (Phoenix­ing and Oth­er Mea­sures) Act 2012 (Cth) (Act) which will amend var­i­ous sec­tions of the Corpo­ra­tions Act 2001 (Cth). The Act was passed by Par­lia­ment on 9 May 2012 and is cur­rent­ly await­ing procla­ma­tion. ASIC has indi­cat­ed that it expects the new notices web­site to go live on 1 July 2012.

Under the changes, notices of the fol­low­ing cor­po­rate insol­ven­cy actions will need to be pub­lished on the new ASIC website:

• Wind­ing up applications;
• Appointments;
• Meet­ings of creditors;
• Inten­tion to dis­claim property;
• Call­ing for proofs of debt and inten­tion to declare dividends;
• Meet­ings for schemes of arrange­ment (the option of pub­lish­ing in the print media instead will remain for this); and
• Com­pa­ny deregistrations.

Infor­ma­tion released by ASIC about the web­site states that any­one will be able to eas­i­ly search the site for notices rel­e­vant to any cor­po­rate insol­ven­cy they have an inter­est in.

ASIC has announced that it will be pos­si­ble to access the new web­site dur­ing the week pri­or to 1 July 2012; to fol­low a guide to reg­is­ter as a user on the site. Once a user is reg­is­tered they will be able to select the type of notice they wish to lodge, add the rel­e­vant details, review the draft notice which will be gen­er­at­ed by the site and final­ly lodge the notice for pub­li­ca­tion on the site.

If you would like fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the changes or any fur­ther devel­op­ments which occur in rela­tion to the changes, please con­tact us.