Friday, September 22, 2023
Directors’ Duties to Creditors in an Insolvency Situation
Notes of lecture to Lawyers and Accountants specializing in Trust law (19 September 2023)
Trading while insolvent
Two-fold insolvency test: (1) balance sheet (assets and liabilities) (2) liquidity (paying debts as they fall due
What are directors’ duties
largely statutory – originated in Chancery Courts in England as fiduciary in nature – directors entrusted with company assets. (The leading exposition of directors’ duties was that of Romer J in Re City Equitable Fire Insurance Company Ltd. [1925] 1 Ch. 407: duties are fiduciary in nature but directors are not trustees (at 426).)
Companies Act 1993, (relevantly to present discussion) sections More...
Friday, August 18, 2023
Redundancy, Good faith and Employment Law
These are troubled times. Companies are seeking to cut costs and
restructuring and reduction of their work force is an obvious way of doing so.
Redundancy is the outcome. Unlike many countries, New Zealand lacks any
statute that deals specifically with employers’ obligations and employees’
rights in a redundancy situation. For that reason, a recent Judgment of the
Employment Court delivered by former President of the New Zealand Law
Society, Judge Kathryn Beck – New Zealand Steel Limited v. Haddad [2023]
NZEmpC 57 (5 April 2023) - will be of interest. It goes a long way to filling the
gap More...
Tuesday, May 09, 2023
Is the America's Cup a poisoned chalice for New Zealand?
We all remember the excitement when Sir Peter Blake led Team New Zealand to win the America’s Cup from the United States in 1995, with the whole country getting behind the “red socks” campaign to raise money to ensure that the team got to the finish line. Winning it from “Dirty Dennis” Connor, who was seen to be unsporting and who didn’t play fair, was the icing on the cake. However, after Blake left, the Cup was lost to Alinghi but then won back again by Team NZ under Grant Dalton from Oracle in 2017 and then successfully defended in More...
Wednesday, December 07, 2022
The Passing of Two Knights of the Realm - Sir Murray Halberg and Sir Ian Barker
The past month has seen two outstanding men leave us – both, coincidentally, aged 89. Their accomplishments have been prominently recounted in the media and so this is not the place to write obituaries. But in different ways, they were each influential in my sporting and professional endeavours and I would like to pay a personal tribute to each of them. I did this previously in the case of George Barton QC, Don Dugdale and Richard Craddock QC (14 September 2011) and David Barnes (World Champion and America’s Cup sailor (2 November 2020). I feel privileged to have known and More...
Monday, October 31, 2022
Random Legal Thoughts While on a Post-Covid Lockdown European Trip
If nothing else, the last 3 years of a Covid-infected world have forced us to face new living and working conditions and severely inhibited our ability to travel abroad. Enforced working from home during lockdowns and virtual Court hearings had their novelty value and there are some who would be happy never to go back to an office and (possibly) some Judges or Justice officials who would see the virtual hearing as a welcome step towards dispensing with oral hearings altogether with “Judgment on the papers” as an infinitely more efficient (and less costly) form of decision-making.The retorts are obvious. More...
Monday, April 04, 2022
America's Cup Venue - Fact or Fiction
So the decision has now been made – but by whom? – and, as expected, the venue for the next AC Defence in 2024 [AC37] is “anywhere but Auckland”, in fact Barcelona. A relief, I suppose, that it’s not Jeddah and New Zealand supporters of Team NZ (assuming that there will be some left after the announcement) will be spared the problem of having to avoid the regular public beheadings – 81 on a single day recently, proclaimed as a “new record”. Team NZ and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron cannot however claim any virtue in not choosing Jeddah. More...
Monday, January 24, 2022
Covid and the New Zealand Rules Committee Proposed Reforms
Below is a piece that I wrote for LAWFUEL that was published on Tuesday 18 January. The link between COVID and the Rules Committee proposals for reform of Court processes, aimed at improving access to Justice by reducing the cost of litigation, may not be obvious. But it does seem to me that one major effect of Covid lockdowns and restrictions has been to reduce the time spent in the courtroom, which on one view might reduce cost. The same purpose and effect would seem to underlie the current reform proposals of the Rules Committee relating to the most More...
Friday, November 26, 2021
A Chat On The Virtual Couch About My Legal Career
I recently took part in a chat on the virtual couch with the New Zealand Bar Association about my life in the law. Listen to it here, using password 091121. More...
Wednesday, November 24, 2021
America’s Cup Home Defence – Requisition For Special General Meeting Of Members Of Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron To Discuss Venue For Next Defence
Under the Rules of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, 25 members may requisition a Special General Meeting. That has occurred, specifically to discuss and debate Team New Zealand’s plans to host the next Defence of the America’s Cup in a foreign City – narrowed down to Cork in Ireland, an unspecified Spanish City and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The Flag Officers (Commodore, Vice Commodore and Rear Commodore) have set 9 December for that Meeting even although at that time under Covid Traffic Light Red, only 100 members per room (they do have 2 large rooms) can attend. Under Orange, More...
Friday, November 12, 2021
Pandemics
I have so far resisted the temptation, engaged in by so many, to express (at least in writing) an opinion on the Covid situation.As an Aucklander, the latest, continuing Lockdown has become increasingly frustrating, especially with a border being erected around the district preventing travel within New Zealand to add to now long-standing deterrence from travelling outside New Zealand given the impediments against returning. The arbitrary MIQ lottery system is now, rightly, the subject of legal challenge and the anomaly of those with Covid being able to self-isolate in their homes while the fully vaccinated returning to New Zealand are More...