The Ashes of illegal Phoenix Companies
With illegal phoenix company activity costing the Australian economy more than $3 billion annually, the time has come to well and truly crackdown on this scourge. The concept of a phoenix company is quite simple, an insolvent business transfers assets below fair market price to a related company. Whereby, intentionally denying unsecured creditors access to the company’s assets. This then leaves a corporate shell in liquidation, unable to pay its debts to creditors. More worryingly it creates a phoenix company reborn from the ashes with same directors in the same industry, with the ability to do the same thing.