A guide to small business restructuring: Part two

DPNS, SECURED CREDITORS, TRUSTS AND OTHER COMPLICATIONS.

Since my December 2020 article on small business restructuring, the relevant Act, Regulations and Rules were passed and subsequently became operative on 1 January. As at 27 January no appointments have been advertised on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's (ASIC) Published Notices website, however five companies have published notices of the intention to rely on temporary restructuring relief.

With the benefit of time to consider the laws in greater detail and the insights of many astute thinkers in the insolvency field, I remain of the opinion that a debtor-in-possession regime deserves a place in our insolvency framework, but acknowledge that the regime we have is in several respects not the perfect expression of the concept. Specifically, the new regime is procedurally dense, and the legislation is piecemeal (like the rest of our insolvency laws) making the process neither simple nor