The Protection of Employee Entitlements in Insolvency

Investigates ways to safeguard employee entitlements that are lost through the improper behaviour of directors.

The Protection of Employee Entitlements in Insolvency: An Australian Perspective is the first detailed analysis of the law and policy dealing with employee entitlements such as wages, leave and redundancy payments that are threatened when companies fail. Although Australia has a government-funded safety-net scheme, currently known as the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, it doesn’t cover all lost entitlements for all workers. Some argue that the scheme removes any incentive for companies to make adequate provision for their employees’ entitlements, increasing the burden on the taxpayer.

As well as investigating ways to safeguard the entitlements of employees that are presently lost through the improper behaviour of directors, The Protection of Employee Entitlements in Insolvency covers the history of Australia’s present system and comprehensively sets out the avenues available to assist employees to recover their entitlements. It also canvases what might be done in the future to improve the protection of employee entitlements in Australia when companies become insolvent.

Associate Professor Helen Anderson holds an LLB (Hons) from the University of Melbourne, as well as a GradDipBus (Acc), LLM and PhD from Monash University. She worked in private practice and then for the Legal Aid Commission before becoming an academic. Her teaching has mainly been in the areas of business law and company law. The fair treatment of vulnerable parties has been her abiding research interest. This book is from her work on improving the recovery rights of employees in corporate insolvency (an ARC funded project).