澳大利亚破产案件的增加如何影响律师费

Lawyersweekly网站2024年8月23日文章： 澳大利亚破产案件的增加如何影响律师费。

文章探讨了澳大利亚各行业公司破产和清算数量的增加，如何对律师费以及法律服务提供商构成显著的财务风险。文章通过墨尔本MA Legal律师事务所的高级律师克里斯蒂安-乌尔迪亚（Cristian Urdea）在《精品律师秀》节目中的观点，详细阐述了以下几个方面：

1. 破产和清算数量的增加：乌尔迪亚指出，澳大利亚证券和投资委员会（ASIC）发布的统计数据显示，各行各业的清算数量均有所增加，尤其是建筑行业的清算案例激增。

2. 经济压力和生活成本上升的影响：他强调了通货膨胀、生活成本上升、利率以及可支配支出减少等经济压力如何加剧了各行业的财务困难，进而导致了清算数量的增加。

3. 对法律服务提供商的风险：乌尔迪亚提到，《公司法》中的特定条款允许清算人收回不公平的优惠付款，包括支付给法律服务提供商的款项。这增加了律师事务所面临的风险，因为它们可能会被迫退还已收取的费用。

4. 对中小企业和精品律师事务所的影响：他特别指出，自上一财年以来，首次进入清算程序的公司数量增加了约200%，这使得这一领域的法律风险显著增加。

5. 应对措施：乌尔迪亚建议法律服务提供商应重视并采取自我保护措施，而不是限制工作类型和接受的任命。他同时强调，尽管存在风险，但律师仍应继续为面临财务困境的公司提供服务，并寻找创新的解决方案。

综述：文章深入分析了破产和清算数量的增加如何对澳大利亚的法律服务市场产生广泛影响，并提供了法律服务提供商在面对这些挑战时应采取的策略。

原文如下：

How the rise in insolvencies is impacting lawyers’ fees

Here, a senior associate explains how the increased volume of companies going into liquidation and/or insolvency across various industries poses significant financial risks for various legal service providers. 

23 August 2024  

Speaking on a recent episode of The Boutique Lawyer Show, Cristian Urdea, a senior associate for Melbourne-based law firm MA Legal, highlighted the significant impact of the increasing occurrences of liquidation of legal service providers. He also underscored the need for legal service providers to be aware of the substantial risks associated with this rise and to respond accordingly.

Urdea shed light on the significant transformation the insolvency landscape has undergone in recent years due to a marked surge in liquidations across various industries.

“ASIC released their stats at the end of [the] financial year [and] what that showed is that across the board [and] across all industries, there’s been an increase,” he said.

He revealed how the construction industry has experienced the most significant surge in liquid cases in the past few years.

“The largest growth in the liquidation space [has] probably unsurprisingly been in [the] construction sectors. You would have seen month-to-month front-page news with construction businesses going out of business or going under, maybe not so much in the last few months, but definitely in the last 18 months,” he said.

The escalating cost of living and current economic pressures, as highlighted by Urdea, have exacerbated the financial hardships experienced by various sectors, contributing to the surge in liquidations.

“Other sectors like accommodation and food services [have] been hit pretty hard with inflation, a rise in living costs, interest rates, and just a general slowdown in discretionary spending,” he said.

He further noted how “the macro outlook is probably not likely to improve in any meaningful way in the short term”, indicating that the increase in liquidations is expected to continue.

This upsurge in liquidations poses a significant risk for law firms. Urdea outlines that specific sections within the Corporations Act grant liquidators the ability to claw back payments made to creditors, including legal service providers.

“Sections 588, FE and FF of the Corporations Act cover certain payments that are considered unfairly preferential and allow them to be voided and then be ordered to be paid back to the company that has paid them [and] in liquidation or is experiencing distress.

“So transactions that [are] caught up by these provisions allow a liquidator to have fairly broad powers, to have them clawed back and ask the court to have them clawed back,” he said.

Urdea emphasised how this can profoundly impact SME and boutique law firms: “There’s been an increase of something like 200-plus per cent of companies going into liquidation for the first time since the last financial year. So you’re definitely working in a space where this is a real risk now.”

However, Urdea stressed the importance of focusing on the measures you can implement to “project yourself” rather than being fixated on the potential risks.

He said: “Rather than limiting the type of work that you do and the appointments that you take on, protecting yourself is probably the better starting position.”

Additionally, Urdea emphasised that despite the risks, law firms should not be discouraged from offering their services to companies facing financial distress.

“Our priority as practitioners is to help others and to help businesses, and, as practitioners, that’s what we want to do. We want to do the work. We want to make our client’s lives easier. We want to give them great solutions. We want them to give them ideas that might be outside the box,” he said.

“You don’t want to curtail the primary reason that you’re in work and you’re practising, but also, at the same time, ignoring the reality that is the current space where liquidators are actually increasing their clawback activity would be silly because you’re also running a business”.

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