The Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA) manages the application of bankruptcy and personal property securities laws in Australia. Key to this work is investigating alleged Bankruptcy Act 1966 and Personal Property Securities Act 2009 offences and where appropriate, referring cases for prosecution.
Applicable offences include:
- Failure to file a statement of affairs.
- Failure to comply with a Notice.
- Failure to disclose information about property and its value.
- Obtaining credit without disclosing bankruptcy.
- Disposing of property during bankruptcy with intent to defraud creditors.
AFSA regularly publishes statistics on its enforcement activities. Recent results are explored in this article.
AFSA enforcement statistics: July 2021 to March 2022
There were no referrals assessed for alleged contraventions of the Personal Property Securities Act during the period.
The below information refers to alleged contraventions of the Bankruptcy Act.
Investigations
481 alleged offence referrals were assessed during the period, of which 248 were accepted for investigation.
AFSA assesses alleged offence referrals for investigation as either compliance or complex offence matters. During the period:
- 218 compliance investigations were completed.
- 188 complex investigations were completed.
Prosecutions
During the period, 111 briefs of evidence were forwarded to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP), and 109 briefs were accepted for prosecution by the CDPP.
60 persons were prosecuted for a total of 75 charges during the period.
Of those charges, 40 were proven with conviction, five were proven without conviction, eleven were withdrawn, two were dismissed, and two were not proven.
The charges per offence are outlined below:
| Charges per offence | Offence |
| 35 | Fail to file statement of affairs (Section 54(1)) |
| 1 | Fail to provide evidence of income (Section 139U(1)) |
| 2 | Fail to disclose information about property and its value (Section 265(1)(a)) |
| 1 | Fail to disclose particulars of disposition of property within 2 year period immediately preceding date of bankruptcy (Section 265(1)(b)) |
| 2 | Fail to disclose information about examinable affairs (Section 265(1)(ca)) |
| 1 | Incur debts while having no reasonable or probable expectation to repay within 2 years prior to bankruptcy (Section 265(8)) |
| 5 | Disposes of, or creates a charge on any property during bankruptcy with intent to defraud creditors (Section 266(1)) |
| 6 | Within 12 months before bankruptcy disposes of, or creates a charge on any property with intent to defraud creditors (Section 266(3)) |
| 3 | Make a false declaration (Section 267(2)) |
| 12 | Failure to comply with a Notice (Section 267B(1)) |
| 1 | Obtain credit alone or jointly without disclosing bankruptcy or being party to a debt agreement >$3,000 (Section 269(1)(a)) |
| 1 | Gambling or hazardous speculations (Section 271(a)) |
| 1 | Bankrupt travels overseas and contravenes any condition imposed by trustee (Section 272(3)) |
| 1 | General dishonesty – Influencing a Commonwealth public official (Section 135.1(7) Criminal Code Act 1995) |
| 2 | Section 20(1)(a) Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) |
| 1 | False or misleading information (Section 137.1 Criminal Code Act 1995) |
