AICD submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Corporate Insolvency in Australia

The AICD made the following key points in its submission:

• Strong support for ‘root and branch’ review of Australia’s insolvency regime as a vital mechanism to comprehensively assess current performance, interaction with other elements of corporate law, personal liability settings, application to NFPs and charities and how to ensure the regime remains fit-for-purpose in the future;
• The Inquiry should examine the appropriateness of director liability insolvent trading threshold being lifted to ‘wrongful trading’ in line with other jurisdictions and separately the possibly harmonisation of the Safe Harbour and the Business Judgement Rule under the Corporations Act;
• The Inquiry should encourage the swift implementation of the recommendations of the Safe Harbour Review;
• The Inquiry should assess possible amendments to the small business restructuring regime to improve its effectiveness and accessibility for directors of SMEs; and
• The Inquiry examine the Australian Taxation Office’s use of Director Penalty Notices.