Companies that are facing financial problems or serious interruptions to their business can be difficult to detect by their lenders and suppliers providing credit terms. Landlords, service providers and businesses with large supply chains are often highly exposed.

Any business that provides terms of credit faces the risk that a customer cannot pay an outstanding amount or enters formal financial distress such as being placed into administration or declared insolvent.

Prevention is the best approach. Working closely with our Business Advisory Team, we can prepare contractual agreements such as terms of trade that increase your collection rights.

This may be in the form of preparing a ‘retention of title’ clause in to your contracts whereby a customer does not own the title of the goods provided until the full amount has been paid. We also suggest that if you are selling or renting out your goods, they have been added to the Personal Property Securities Register in a compliant manner. Both of these steps are incredibly effective for recovering the debt or preventing the loss of goods.

For secured creditors, our Dispute Resolution and Litigation Team will  work closely with you to successfully pursue assets and guarantors, and employ our substantial experience to help resolve priority contests between other creditors. We also advise on how to go about terminating contracts if a customer defaults and determining a final cost that must be paid immediately – even if the contract had significant time left to pay. Our experience in the property sector sees us often advising landlords on how to handle an insolvent tenant and serving eviction notices on their behalf.

Have you received a letter demanding money back?

There are legal defences available to avoid or minimise the amount that a liquidator can
claw back from you.

Our Experts

Businesses rely on Catherine as a disputes specialist who will guide them through complex litigation, and who understands the commercial realities of being involved in a dispute.

John Caridakis

Principal
John has extensive experience representing clients in business disputes and insolvency related matters, with expertise spanning a diverse range of areas including property, contracts, lending, trade practices, and shareholder disputes.

Angelo Conti

Principal
Angelo has acted in a number of high-profile corporate collapses and is an experienced insolvency practitioner with a commercial outlook who takes a holistic approach in determining the best course of action.

Debra Dunn

Special Counsel
Debra is an experienced lawyer with a particular specialisation in advising high wealth individuals on private wealth advisory matters, wills and estates.

Alexandra Lawrence

Senior Associate
Alexandra is an advocate for business owners in a broad range of industries on matters including insolvency, property and construction disputes, and contractual and director and shareholder disputes.

Lisa McNicholas

Senior Associate
Highly experienced in insolvency and commercial litigation, Lisa is a well connected lawyer who creates tailor-made approaches to achieve successful and commercially minded outcomes for her clients.

Sonam Pala

Senior Associate
Sonam has strong litigation experience across contractual, property and construction, consumer law and corporate restructuring matters.

Lee Filkin

Associate
A versatile and results-driven lawyer, Lee achieves successful outcomes for clients across a range of industries.

Thought Leadership & Past Experiences

Coronavirus and the Law: My customer has an administrator / liquidator appointed – what should I do?

The current COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc with businesses and it is an unfortunate reality that in the event one of your customers becomes insolvent, your business could be severely affected. In part three of this series, Special Counsel Catherine...
25 March, 2020

Five things you need to know about statutory demands

Statutory demands are important documents that should never be ignored. Special Counsel Catherine Ballantyne outlines what companies need to know in order to act.
4 October, 2018