A speech by Professor Berna Collier, ASIC 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. ASIC has also been busy on the insolvency front, which means I have lots to say about my topic today: ASIC's increased focus on insolvency.
This continued focus is demonstrated here by the presence of many of ASIC's specialist insolvency staff. ASIC'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 ASIC'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.