As set out
in earlier posts, and with thanks to the Television
Education Network, today’s
post addresses the issue of ‘The ‘Jodee Rich' changes’ at the following link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YzQI7nsYI8
As usual, a
transcript of the presentation for those that cannot (or choose not) to view
the presentation is below –
The Jodee
Rich case related to Mr Rich who was one of the directors of One.Tel.
The allegations were that almost immediately
before, that is a matter of days, before it became public knowledge that
One.Tel had been insolvently trading, Mr Rich took steps to transfer
significant assets out of his name and put them into his spouse's name. He did
that using particular provisions under the family law legislation, which at the
time actually took priority over the bankruptcy laws.
As most will know, the bankruptcy legislation
allows trustees in bankruptcy to clawback assets that are disposed of
immediately before bankruptcy. When Mr Rich did the transfers, the family law
rules allowed the bankruptcy rules to be ignored, so the creditors would have
been left exposed.
In the particular factual scenario of Mr
Rich's situation, he actually voluntarily agreed to unwind the transfers. However, the fact that Mr Rich had even tried
to do the transfers was enough of a catalyst for the government at the time to
bring in amending legislation.
The law now requires anyone that has both a
relationship issue and creditors in play at the same time, for all of those
parties to be heard before the same judge and for that judge to then make a
decision as to how the assets should be dealt with.