Oceania: Corporate/Commercial Law

When a target board tells shareholders that a takeover offer materially undervalues the company, it must do more than state an opinion. Australian takeover law requires boards to explain their reasoning...

Financial abuse is one of the most common forms of elder abuse in Australia, yet it often goes undetected because it occurs within trusted relationships. This article examines how older Australians with significant assets become vulnerable to exploitation, the legal principles courts apply to protect them, and the critical warning signs families and legal professionals should recognize.

When a company enters liquidation, directors often assume their responsibilities have ended. However, they retain critical statutory obligations to assist the liquidator, provide company records, and respond to inquiries about the company's affairs. Understanding these continuing duties is essential, as failure to cooperate can result in penalties, court orders, and potential personal liability.

For families caring for a person with a severe disability, understanding how to provide long-term financial security while maintaining access to social security benefits presents unique challenges. Special Disability Trusts offer a structured legal solution with significant asset-test exemptions and gifting concessions, but navigating the complex eligibility requirements, compliance obligations, and determining whether this structure suits your family's circumstances requires careful consideration.

Asset protection during bankruptcy depends on genuine ownership, not trust labels. Property held for others is generally excluded from a bankrupt estate, but beneficial interests, trust debts, and trustee indemnities may still be recoverable. Transfers into trusts can be challenged under undervalue or creditor-defeating provisions if timing, consideration, and purpose raise concerns.

Before amending a trust deed, it is important to carefully review the deed to determine whether the proposed amendment is permitted and what requirements must be followed.

When a company enters liquidation, directors often assume their responsibilities have ended. However, they retain critical statutory obligations to assist the liquidator, provide company records, and respond to inquiries about the company's affairs. Understanding these continuing duties is essential, as failure to cooperate can result in penalties, court orders, and potential personal liability.

For many business owners, the prospect of insolvency raises a confronting question about their future eligibility to serve as company directors. While business failure can be a difficult experience...

In Australian corporate insolvency law, administration is a formal process under Part 5.3A of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). An external administrator is appointed to take control of a company while its business, property, affairs and financial circumstances are investigated and creditors consider the company’s future.

A licensing agreement lets one business use intellectual property another business owns, without transferring ownership. Companies in the same group in New Zealand often share a brand or a system with nothing in writing. Each company remains a separate legal entity under the Companies Act 1993, regardless of who owns the shares. An undocumented arrangement gives the user no right it can prove and no right it can defend. That gap shows up when a shareholder falls out, an entity sells, or a liquidator arrives.

The Australian Treasury has released exposure draft legislation detailing the implementation of a 30% minimum tax on discretionary trusts, introducing a new election regime that allows trusts to nominate fixed distribution entitlements and avoid the minimum tax. While the draft addresses stakeholder feedback and provides rollover relief for restructuring, it presents complex compliance requirements, strict limitations on beneficiary variations, and potential resettlement issues that may create challenges

Last year, we wrote an article about how scheme booklets are becoming increasingly lengthy and potentially difficult for many shareholders to easily digest.