Some things don’t change – division 7A and contracts 101 **

Following on from last week’s post, today’s post considers another aspect of where company constitutions have the terms of a Division 7A loan or facility agreement embedded in them.

In most circumstances, it is generally the case that the Tax Office will accept that the terms of the facility agreement will regulate any debit loans made by the company from time to time.

One difficulty however that can arise in this regard is that from a simple contractual perspective, these loans will not be effectively created unless the recipient of the loan is in fact a party to the constitution.

Under the Corporations Act, the constitution is a contract between the company, the members and directors.

This means that if, for example, a loan is made to a non- member or director by the company, then the facility agreement contained within the constitution will not be able to be relied on.

As usual, please make contact if you would like access to any of the content mentioned in this post.

** For the trainspotters, ‘Don’t change’ is a song by INXS from 1982.

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Warranties and indemnities: don’t wanna fight**

Previous posts have considered various aspects of warranties and indemnities.

Generally, the scope of recovery and damages that may be obtained will be greater where an indemnity is provided.

This is because an indemnity is effectively a promise to either reimburse or make good relevant issues if they arise.

Furthermore, indemnities:

1. Do not require the person giving the indemnity to have actually caused the loss – in other words, regardless of how the loss arises, liability will be triggered.
2. Common law rules that normally limit the scope of liability, such as remoteness or an obligation to mitigate losses, do not apply in relation to indemnities.

In contrast, a warranty only provides a promise that certain statements are correct. Practically this means:

1. A party seeking to claim in relation to a breach of warranty must do so by seeking damages.
2. The common law principles mentioned above of remoteness and an obligation to mitigate potential losses do apply.

As usual, please contact me if you would like access to any of the content mentioned in this post.

** For the trainspotters, the title of today's post is riffed from the Alabama Shakes song ‘Don’t wanna fight’.

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