In May 2015 the Productivity Commission released its Draft Report ‘Business Set-up, Transfer and Closure'. This research note does not deal with the broad range of issues touched on by the Productivity Commission. Instead, it concentrates on those matters relating to corporate insolvency and...

Phoenix activity occurs where the business of a failed company is transferred to a second company and the second company's controllers are the same as the first company's controllers. Phoenix activity can be both legal as well as illegal, however regulators face difficulties delineating between...

Phoenix activity occurs where the business of a failed company is transferred to a second (typically newly incorporated) company and the second company's controllers are the same as the first company's controllers. Phoenix activity can be legal as well as illegal. The aim of this research report...

Phoenix activity occurs where the business of a failed company is transferred to a second (typically newly incorporated) company and the second company's controllers are the same as the first company's controllers. Phoenix activity can be legal as well as illegal. Phoenix activity has become a...

A curious feature of the Australian tax treatment of intellectual property is that, while specific tax incentives are given to initial research and development activity which might generate intellectual property with commercial potential, and while significant tax concessions are given to...

Although Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are widely used in Australian companies, little is known about why employees participate in these plans. Yet understanding employee motivations for share ownership has significant implications for corporate governance, human resource practice and...

This article analyses the decision of the High Court in Aid/Watch Inc v Federal Commissioner of Taxation, in which a majority of the Court ruled that an organisation was not necessarily excluded from charitable status because it had a main or dominant political purpose. The article reflects upon...

Through employee share schemes, employees have the opportunity to take up equity in the company for which they work. There are two distinct types of employee share schemes: ‘broad-based' schemes that are open to the majority of employees within a company, and ‘narrow-based' schemes that are...

Employee share ownership in Australia has, until recently, been largely unchartered, despite considerable public policy interest in the area. Although empirical research has recently been undertaken into the current incidence and forms of broad-based employee share ownership plans (ESOPs) in...

This research report presents findings from a survey of employee share ownership practice in Australian listed companies. The research focused on broad-based employee share ownership plans (ESOPs): that is, plans that are open to a majority of employees within the company. The purpose of this...