Corporate & Commercial
Contracts, structures and governance for businesses that need the paperwork to hold when something goes wrong.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Buying or selling a business, from the term sheet and due diligence through to completion and the restraints that follow.
Litigation & Dispute Resolution
Commercial disputes in the NSW, ACT and Federal courts, resolved early where that is possible and run properly where it is not.
Technology and Software
Your product scales digitally. Your contracts have to scale with it.
The track record
Judgments and tribunal outcomes, transactions completed, appointments taken, and the conversations we are part of in Australia and in Germany.
Germany
A German desk for businesses moving between Australia and the German-speaking market.
Singapore
Singapore law where it governs the contract, and the arbitral seat that carries much of the region’s work.
Insolvency and Restructuring
We act for the creditor chasing the money and for the company and directors on the other side of it.
For businesses owed money by an Australian counterparty, for companies under pressure that still have options, and for directors whose own exposure has become the real question. Every matter is led by a principal, and the first thing we work out is whether there is anything left to recover.
2007
Practising in Australia since
3
Offices: Sydney, Canberra, Frankfurt
2
Legal systems, one team
1
Principal on every matter
How the work runs
Six decisions, and who has to make them
01
First, whether there is anything to recover
Before a letter goes out we look at what the debtor actually has: whether it trades, what is registered against it, whether there is a guarantee, and whether anyone else has got there first. A judgment against an empty company costs money and returns nothing, and we would rather tell you that at the start than bill you to find out.
02
Demand, and the order it goes in
A proper letter of demand resolves a great many debts on its own and costs very little. It also sets up everything that follows. Where there is security, a retention of title clause or a registration on the personal property securities register, that is often a faster route to the goods or the money than any proceeding, and it is checked before anything is sent.
03
The statutory demand, and its trap
A statutory demand is a powerful and blunt instrument. If the company does not comply, it is presumed insolvent and can be wound up. If you are on the receiving end, the application to set it aside must be filed with the court and served on the creditor inside the statutory period, and that period cannot be extended. Missing it by a day ends the argument, however good the underlying defence was. It is also the wrong tool where the debt is genuinely disputed, and using it there can be an abuse of process.
04
For the company: the options while there are still options
Voluntary administration, small business restructuring, a deed of company arrangement, an informal workout with the main creditors, or a solvent wind down. Which of these is available narrows quickly as cash runs out, so the value of advice is highest at the point most companies have not yet asked for it.
05
For the director: your own position is a separate question
A director who lets a company incur debts while it is insolvent, or while there are reasonable grounds to suspect it is, can be personally liable for them. Safe harbour can take that liability away, but only if a course of action reasonably likely to lead to a better outcome for the company was actually being developed and pursued, and the director carries the evidential burden of showing it. That is a reason to document decisions while they are being made. Unpaid tax brings a separate personal exposure again, on its own timetable.
06
After an appointment
Proving in the administration or liquidation, responding to a liquidator chasing a payment back as a preference, and dealing with a receiver or controller appointed over the assets. These are short-timetable exercises with real deadlines, and the right answer is often commercial rather than curial.
Selected matters
Insolvency and recovery matters we have run
Clients are not named and no proceeding is identified. The kind of work, the side we acted on and the jurisdiction are.
Receivership
Dispute over the appointment of a receiver to a company
Acted for the company resisting the appointment.
Urgent application · NSW
Asset finance
Recovery proceedings brought by a financier, and claims defended against it
Acted for the financier on both sides of the ledger.
Commercial list · NSW
Director exposure
Advice to a director on personal liability and on a removal from office
Acted for the director, on the company law position and the tax exposure together.
NSW
Controllers
Appointment of a controller over the assets of a trading company
Acted on the appointment.
NSW
Credit and security
Credit account terms and registration on the personal property securities register
Acted for a supplier, putting the security in place before the exposure rather than after it.
NSW
Cross-border recovery
Recovery of a trade debt owed across the Tasman
Acted for the creditor.
Australia and New Zealand
Debt recovery
Recovery of unpaid fees and of arrears under a commercial lease
Acted for the creditors.
NSW and ACT
Defending recovery
Defence of claims for payment brought against a trading company
Acted for the respondent companies.
NSW
Who does the work
The person you meet is the person who runs it
Fabian Hoffmann
Principal · Sydney, Canberra and Frankfurt
Juris Doctor (ANU) and the First State Examination in Law (Bielefeld), admitted in the Australian Capital Territory, Notary Public of the Society of Notaries of New South Wales, member of the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators, and Vertrauensanwalt for both the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Austria. Works in German and English, and tutored contract law at the ANU College of Law for four years.
Mason Keene-McCann
Principal · Canberra
Admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Victoria and holds a practising certificate in the Australian Capital Territory. Joined Boettcher Law in 2022 and works with barristers and experts on contested commercial matters.
Australia and Germany
One team, both legal systems
Where a matter runs across both jurisdictions, the German side is handled by our Frankfurt office under German law, not passed to correspondent counsel and marked up. That is the practical difference: one team, one set of documents, and nobody translating between two firms at your cost.
Tax on either side sits with an accountant. We work with Accru Felsers through the German Professional Services Alliance and bring them in at the point the numbers start to matter, which on a restructure or a share transfer is usually before we draft.
Related
Also relevant when money is not being paid
Tell us who owes what
Send us the invoices or the demand, and whatever you know about the other side. We will tell you what is realistically recoverable, what it costs to chase, and what we would do first. If you have received a statutory demand, say so in the first line: that one is on a clock that cannot be extended.
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