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Companies Act 1993

Liquidations - Duties, rights, and powers of liquidators

254: Liquidator not required to act in certain cases

You could also call this:

“Liquidator can choose when to act on property with charges”

You don’t always have to do everything as a liquidator. If someone owns property that has a charge on it, you can choose whether or not to deal with that property. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.

There’s also a special case for the Official Assignee. The Official Assignee is a person who helps when companies go out of business. If a company has no money left to give to the people it owes, the Official Assignee doesn’t have to do any work on the liquidation. But they need to get permission from the government minister in charge of this law if they want to do any work that might cost money.

Remember, if you want to know more about charges being given up or bought back, you can look at section 305. Also, if you want to know more about how companies are put into liquidation, you can check section 241(2)(c).

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM321905.

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Part 16 Liquidations
Duties, rights, and powers of liquidators

254Liquidator not required to act in certain cases

  1. Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Part,—

  2. except where the charge is surrendered or taken to be surrendered or redeemed under section 305, a liquidator may, but is not required to, carry out any duty or exercise any power in relation to property that is subject to a charge:
    1. where—
      1. a company is put into liquidation under section 241(2)(c); and
        1. the Official Assignee is the liquidator of the company; and
          1. the company has no assets available for distribution to creditors of the company,—
            2. the Official Assignee shall not be required, without the consent of the Minister of the Crown who, under the authority of any warrant or with the authority of the Prime Minister, is for the time being responsible for the administration of this Act, to carry out any duty or exercise any power in connection with the liquidation if, to do so, would or would be likely to involve incurring any expense.

          Notes
          • Section 254(b): amended, on , by section 10(3) of the Department of Justice (Restructuring) Act 1995 (1995 No 39).