Purpose
To enable you to consider and research a topic of current interest of relevance to Australian corporate law.
You must answer Part A and Part B questions. The Assignment will be marked out of 100, adjusted to a final mark out of 30 in accordance with the weighting of this assignment to your final grade for the course: 30%.
It is important for you to take time to think through how to structure and present arguments and to review and discuss what the law is or should be in a particular area.
Part A (worth 45 marks in total)
Research the topic of phoenix activity and respond to the following questions:
1. What is meant by the term ‘phoenix activity'?
Hint - there are several definitions, please explain the meaning in your own words
2. Can phoenix activity be beneficial to society? If so, how?
3. What purpose is behind phoenix activity? Can there be more than one purpose?
4. Who benefits from phoenix activity and who loses? Give reasons.
5. Is there a section of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) that specifically prohibits phoenix activity? If so, which section?
6. Are there sections of the Corporations Act 2001 which may be breached by phoenix activity? If so, identify at least two sections.
7. Identify (and correctly cite) at least one case in which phoenix activity was considered. What were the main issues and what was the decision?
Part B
Read and consider several academic articles discussing phoenix activity.
8. Do you think prohibiting phoenix activity by creating a phoenix offence, or a phoenix prohibition is likely to be successful? Why, or why not?
9. How could an offence or prohibition be structured?
Word Limit
2,300-2,500 in total (assignments exceeding the word limit may not be marked and may be returned to the student for re-writing; assignments less than the required length will risk not covering the topic adequately and may result in a fail).