This is a guide to insolvency as practised in New Zealand. Here we look at the options facing companies, their directors and shareholders as they face the challenges of their businesses.

The only way to truly explain the regime, and to understand how to protect yourself from being caught by it, is to understand the background and logic behind it.

It is indeed impossible to describe the duty of directors in general terms, whether by way of analogy or otherwise. The position of a director of a company carrying on a small retail business is very different from that of a director of a railway company.

The Media often use the terms Receivership and Liquidation interchangeably and for most practicable purposes the two regimes are identical but there are some important distinctions between them.