Paul Fordyce

Paul Fordyce is the principal and founder of PMF Legal. He has worked in commercial law and litigation (with an emphasis on insolvency) since 1974. He is an Accredited Specialist in Commercial Litigation
(Insolvency) with the Law Society of New South Wales and is a Full Member of the Insolvency Practitioners Association of Australia - recently admitted as such when solicitors became eligible for full membership of this body for the first time. His membership was granted based on recognition of his standing in the profession.

Paul has considerable commercial experience which gives him a far greater understanding of what commercial clients need and expect when seeking legal assistance.

Paul has worked with some of the leading practitioners in insolvency including Warren Madgwick and Peter Somerset (his partner for 22 years). His work experience has included acting for and against liquidators and receivers, including in the major accounting firms. His insolvency experience includes working in voluntary administrations, creditors' voluntary liquidations, court liquidations and receiverships. He acts both for and against insolvency practitioners. In acting against insolvency practitioners he has acted for creditors and debtors of failed companies and directors (including people who the law regards as being directors) of failed companies.

His extensive experience in corporate insolvency has allowed him to work with insolvency issues as an expert so that he is able to bring a great deal of imaginative problem solving to this very complex area of the law. This has resulted in the uncovering of major defects in the Corporate Law area which have necessitated amendments to the Corporations legislation to overcome serious problems. He has been able to bring solutions and find ways ahead for clients who had seemed to have no options available to them to overcome the problems they faced. He has appeared personally in many cases without counsel - which has enabled the problem at hand to be addressed by the person who was given instructions in the matter and who was conscious of all of the issues at stake rather than having to engage counsel who could not be as thoroughly across the problems.

He has specialist experience in a range of industries including magazine editing and publishing, importation, distribution and retail businesses.

Additionally, Paul has turned his expertise and leadership to the development and maintenance of Australia's largest database on corporate insolvency information. Located at www.insolvencynotices.com the site is always current, being updated 6 days a week - including public holidays.

His experience has included acting on the purchase and sale of businesses, working on multi-million dollar tenders for Commonwealth government contracts and for publicly listed private companies. At times this has also involved being involved in major commercial litigation including cases against the Commonwealth of Australia, major banks and other financial institutions and large corporations. One of the leading cases that Paul was involved in against the Commonwealth of Australia in 1997 resulted in a thorough review being undertaken by the Commonwealth of its tendering procedures. This has resulted in much fairer and more transparently conducted tendering procedures.

Professional Memberships:
. International Bar Association (IBA).
. The Commercial Law Association of Australia)
. International Federation of Insolvency Practitioners (INSOL)
. Law Society of New South Wales
. Insolvency Practitioner's Association of Australia (IPAA)
. International Women's Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC)