A speech by Professor Berna Collier, ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥ Commissioner, to the Practical Insolvency and Practice Management Conference, 4 August 2005.
I am delighted to again be speaking at this conference, in what is proving to be an exciting year for corporate insolvency – with INSOL in Sydney in March and the Government's announcement on law reform. ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥ has also been busy on the insolvency front, which means I have lots to say about my topic today: ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥'s increased focus on insolvency.
This continued focus is demonstrated here by the presence of many of ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥'s specialist insolvency staff. ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥'s National Insolvency Coordination Unit (NICU) currently has 13 permanent specialist insolvency staff as well as 7 senior secondments from the insolvency profession.
The key focus of my presentation today is our current insolvency activities and those proposed for this financial year. In this paper I propose to:
- touch on insolvency law reform
- talk about our policy and guidance work, including:
- ASIC's guide on deeds of company arrangement involving creditors' trusts
- our soon to be released liquidator registration policy statement, and
- our proposed practitioner conduct guidance.
- discuss ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥'s approach to approval of remuneration
- give an overview of our forthcoming practitioner conduct program, and
- update you on some of our other insolvency activities, including our National Insolvent Trading Program and our EXAD Project.