I have just put the finishing touches to a seminar paper I am delivering this week on the Personal Property Securities Act 2009.

My paper is not as unwieldy and dry as the PPS Act itself (is anything?) but I wouldn’t call it sexy either. I will post it on its own discrete (ie separately tabbed) page in this blog after the seminar.

For an extremely short synopsis of the PPS Act generally see my post of 10 February 2012 (which you can access by simply following the date prompts below the mugshot in the right-hand margin of this page.)

But let me take you straight to what might be the highlight for general commercial litigators with Mareva-type injunctions in their armoury (and they should be in every armoury).

Once Mareva orders (aka ‘asset preservation orders’ and ‘freezing orders’) and some analogous orders are obtained from any Australian court or tribunal it seems they can be ‘perfected’ by registration on the PPS Register.

Such registration will effectively advertise the existence of your client’s Mareva injunction to the world at large. That ‘perfection’, among other things, should constructively warn off third parties who might otherwise purchase or lend against the property in breach of a court order restraining the use and/or disposal of that property.

This new tool lies buried in reg 5.3(c) of the PPS Regulations. I am not aware of it having been used since the PPSA regime started on 30 January 2012.

Is this history waiting to be made or has it been made already?

Anyone?