Assignment : Corporate Law

Purpose

To enable you to consider and research a topic of current interest of relevance to Australian corporate law.

You must answer Part A and Part B questions. The Assignment will be marked out of 100, adjusted to a final mark out of 30 in accordance with the weighting of this assignment to your final grade for the course: 30%.

It is important for you to take time to think through how to structure and present arguments and to review and discuss what the law is or should be in a particular area. Whilst discussion with others is encouraged, the final piece of work must be your own.

Word Limit 2,300-2,500 in total (assignments exceeding the word limit may not be marked and may be returned to the student for re-writing; assignments less than the required length will risk not covering the topic adequately and may result in a fail). Do not include synopsis, references or bibliography in the word count.

Note: All Federation University Australia rules relating to referencing, citation and acknowledgement must be followed. -please see Course Description for further details of acceptable referencing styles.

Introduction In the past decade there have been several reviews and reports on phoenix activity in Australia. There are currently at least two government taskforces focussing on phoenix activities in Australia. These are:

PHOENIX TASKFORCE

The Taskforce brings together key federal and state agencies to identify, manage and monitor suspected phoenix operators. The Taskforce has also formulated law reform proposals that may be relevant to the Black Economy Taskforce.

SERIOUS FINANCIAL CRIME TASKFORCE

The Taskforce forms part of the Fraud and Anti-Corruption Centre, which is led by the AFP. Offences targeted by the Taskforce relate to serious fraud, money laundering and defrauding the Commonwealth. Current priorities include: criminality related to international tax evasion, fraudulent phoenix activity, trusts and superannuation.

Part A

Research the topic of phoenix activity and respond to the following questions:

1. What is meant by the term 'phoenix activity'? Hint - there are several definitions, please explain the meaning in your own words

2. Can phoenix activity be beneficial to society? If so, how?

3. What purpose is behind phoenix activity? Can there be more than one purpose?

4. Who benefits from phoenix activity and who loses? Give reasons.

5. Is there a section of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) that specifically prohibits phoenix activity? If so, which section?

6. Are there sections of the Corporations Act 2001 which may be breached by phoenix activity? If so, identify at least two sections.

7. Identify (and correctly cite) at least one case in which phoenix activity was considered. What were the main issues and what was the decision?

Part B

Read and consider several academic articles discussing phoenix activity.

8. Do you think prohibiting phoenix activity by creating a phoenix offence, or a phoenix prohibition is likely to be successful? Why, or why not?

9. How could an offence or prohibition be structured?