The aim of crowd sourced equity funding (CSEF) is to enable companies, particularly innovative start-ups, to raise comparatively small amounts of equity funding from a spread of investors, usually via an online platform, with less disclosure than would be required in a full prospectus. In a post in August this year, I noted that the […]
I have expanded my online digest of PPSA cases to include two recent decisions. Gelpack Enterprises Pty Ltd, Re [2015] NSWSC 1558 Gelpack is a case about authority needed to sign or agree to terms of a security agreement, and is also interesting because the court commented on the nature of the rights in collateral […]
In an exposure draft of the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Spring Repeal Day) Bill 2015, the Government has proposed amendments to the Corporations Act and to tax legislation, to abolish the concept of the Australian Company Number (ACN) for new companies. Companies to be formed with ABNs instead of ACNs Instead, every newly-formed company must have […]
An amendment to the PPSA, dealing with short term leases, will commence soon. Generally, leases of serial numbered goods (motor vehicles, aircraft, watercraft) will no longer require registration if the term is a year or less, replacing the former 90 day rule for these kinds of goods. But there are traps for the unwary, particularly […]
In an earlier post in February this year, I noted that the Government was moving towards the introduction of crowd sourced equity funding, or CSEF, in Australia, following the issue of a Treasury discussion paper in late 2014 that had described three possible approaches to this reform. CSEF means raising comparatively small amounts of equity […]
If you want a registration against you removed from the PPS register, and you give an amendment demand but the secured party will not remove it, you can apply to the Registrar (the ‘administrative process’) or a court (the ‘judicial process’) to have it removed. A recent decision by the AAT comments on the different […]
It’s an interesting question whether the Personal Property Security Act, in defining ‘security interest’, is creating a new species of property, or whether the term is simply used to describe a range of traditional security and other interests A comment by Robb J in the NSW Supreme Court decision Photios v Cussen [2015] NSWSC 336 comes down […]
The Victorian Law Reform Commission recommends creation of an ‘oppression’ remedy for beneficiaries of trading trusts. Where a business is conducted through a trading trust, and the beneficiaries are subject to oppressive, unfairly prejudicial or unfairly discriminatory conduct, the reform would allow a court to make orders such as requiring the trustee to cease the […]
This case is about the common situation where supplies are made on retention of title (ROT) terms, and the contracts consist of an initial master agreement plus subsequent separate contracts for each supply. The ROT is a security interest, and a PPSA registration is required. But if the master agreement was made before the PPSA […]
A new NSW Supreme Court case, about parents trying to keep their property out of the hands of their daughter’s bankrupt estate, briefly mentions the PPSA. It says the PPSA would have defeated an argument the parents might have used to claim they had a charge over proceeds of the sale of the property. But […]